Complete DHS Report for
September 29, 2015
Daily Report
Top Stories
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A former La Jolla Bank official pleaded guilty September 25 to a bribery scheme
in which she conspired with senior executives to arrange over $55 million in
loans to unqualified borrowers. – San Diego Union-Tribune See item 3 below
in the Financial Services Sector
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California officials re-adopted the low-carbon fuel standard September 25,
requiring producers to cut transportation fuel emissions 10 percent by 2020. – Associated
Press
9. September
25, Associated Press – (California) California regulators restore emissions-cutting
fuel rule. California officials re-adopted its low-carbon fuel standard
September 25, requiring producers to cut transportation fuel emissions 10
percent by 2020. The changes are also expected to increase the cost of gasoline
and diesel fuel a few cents a gallon.Source: http://lompocrecord.com/news/state-and-regional/california-regulators-restore-emissions-cutting-fuel-rule/article_6dd7fd91-4491-5272-8649-fce6b1d31eaa.html?comment_form=true
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released an audit September 24
on the Multidimensional Insurance Data Analytics System and found that it had
issues with its security policy and 135 database vulnerabilities. – Associated
Press
20. September
24, Associated Press – (National) Audit finds holes in government computer system
that stores data on HealthCare.gov customers. The U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services Inspector General’s Office released an audit September 24 on
the Federal Government’s Multidimensional Insurance Data Analytics System
(MIDAS), and found that the internal computer system, which is used to store
sensitive personal information on millions of health insurance customers, had
issues of security policy and 135 database vulnerabilities. Officials reported
that it fixed all the problems identified in the audit, including the nearly
two dozen that were categorized as potentially catastrophic or severe. Source: http://www.startribune.com/audit-finds-slipshod-cyber-security-at-healthcare-gov/329204921/
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Officials reported September 27 that up to 40 people were injured at the Summer
Ends music festival in Tempe Beach Park September 26 after concert-goers rushed
the stage, prompting authorities to cancel a musical set due to a medical
emergency. – Associated Press
28. September
27, Associated Press – (Arizona) Concert-goers injured after dozens rush music
festival stage in Arizona. Arizona fire officials reported September 27
that up to 40 people were injured at the Summer Ends music festival in Tempe
Beach Park September 26 after concert-goers rushed the stage when a reggae band
came on, prompting authorities to cancel a musical set due to a medical
emergency. Fans were moved back from the stage while medical professionals
tended to the injured. Source: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/27/arizona-music-festival-concert-goers-rush-stage
Financial Services Sector
3. September
26, San Diego Union-Tribune – (California) Guilty plea in La
Jolla bribery scheme. A former head of La Jolla Bank’s Small Business
Administration (SBA) lending department pleaded guilty September 25 to a
bribery scheme in which she conspired with senior executives to arrange over
$55 million in loans to unqualified borrowers, for which she and other
executives took cash bribes and kickbacks in exchange. Hundreds of millions of
dollars’ worth of conventional loans were reportedly part of the scheme, and
the SBA-backed loans issued by the suspect resulted in almost $20 million worth
of bank losses. Source: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/sep/26/Amalia-Martinez-guilty-la-jolla-bank-bribery/
4. September
25, Press of Atlantic City – (New Jersey) Suspects skimmed Margate bank
customers’ info, police say. Margate Police and U.S. Secret Service
officials were investigating reports of fraud September 25 after ATM skimming
devices installed on Bank of America ATMs in July reportedly resulted in losses
of over $50,000 to 40 customers. Source: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/suspects-skimmed-margate-bank-customers-info-police-say/article_286e6f8a-63c5-11e5-a659-eb719a10e4d0.html
For another story, see item 27 below in the Information Technology Sector
Information Technology Sector
23. September
28, Securityweek – (International) Mobile ad network abused in DDoS attack:
CloudFlare. CloudFlare reported that a customer was recently targeted by a
Layer 7 JavaScript-based distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack leveraging
a mobile ad network in an attack that involved over 1 billion Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests per hour. Security researchers warned that
the attack could be signaling a new trend in DDoS attacks that are more
difficult to mitigate. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/mobile-ad-network-abused-ddos-attack-cloudflare
24. September
26, Securityweek – (International) Cookies render HTTPS sessions vulnerable to
data leaks. The Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) published an
advisory warning that cookies established via regular Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP) requests are a security flaw for HTTP Secure (HTTPS) sessions,
and that an attacker could set a cookie to be later used via an HTTPS
connection instead of the original Web site, potentially gaining access to
private information.
25. September
26, Softpedia – (International) Operation Pony Express delivers malware via
Microsoft Word files. Security researchers from Sophos reported that a
spear-phishing campaign active from April – May, dubbed Operation Pony Express,
utilized a documented Microsoft Word vulnerability delivered via an
intermediary malware downloader. The campaign targeted specific individuals and
organizations with emails containing fake rich text format (RTF) invoice files
purporting to be from RingCentral. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/operation-pony-express-delivers-malware-via-microsoft-word-files-492836.shtml
26. September
25, Softpedia – (International) Over 2,000 WordPress sites are infecting
users with spyware. Security researchers from Zscaler discovered a covert
spyware distribution campaign active since August that has been targeting the
latest WordPress content management system (CMS) with malicious JavaScript code
that uses iframes to collect user information and redirects users to pages
containing spyware masked as an Adobe Flash Player update. The campaign has
affected over 2,000 sites and infected over 20,000 users. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/over-2-000-wordpress-sites-are-infecting-users-with-spyware-492825.shtml
27. September
25, Softpedia – (International) Kasidet DDOSing bot adds credit card scraping
capabilities. Security researchers from TrendMicro discovered a new version
of the Kasidet/Neutrino distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) bot, which as of
March added support for scraping a device’s point-of-sale (PoS) random access
memory (RAM). The bot’s command-and-control (C&C) server also attempts to
evade mitigation by sending “404 not found” errors to make it appear that it is
not working properly. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/kasidet-ddosing-bot-adds-credit-card-scraping-capabilities-492802.shtml
Communications Sector
Nothing to report