Complete DHS Report for July 29, 2016
Daily Report
Top Stories
• A former registered broker pleaded guilty July 27 to defrauding
ForceField Energy Inc., investors out of $131 million between January 2009 and
April 2015 after he and co-conspirators manipulated the price and volume of
traded ForceField shares. – U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New
York
4. July 27,
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York – (National)
Registered broker pleads guilty to securities fraud for participating in a
$131 million market manipulation scheme. A former registered broker pleaded
guilty July 27 to defrauding ForceField Energy Inc., investors out of $131
million between January 2009 and April 2015 after he and co-conspirators
manipulated the price and volume of traded ForceField shares by orchestrating
the trading of ForceField stock to create the appearance of interest and
trading volume in the stock, and concealing payments to stock promoters and
broker dealers who claimed to be independent of the company, among other
fraudulent means. The charges also state that a ForceField executive paid
kickbacks to the broker in exchange for purchasing company stocks in his
client’s brokerage accounts between October 2014 and April 2015. Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/registered-broker-pleads-guilty-securities-fraud-particpating-131-million-market
• Good Food Concepts, LLC, doing business as Ranch Foods Direct,
issued a recall July 26 for approximately 2,606 pounds of its non-intact beef
products distributed in Colorado due to potential E.coli O157:H7 contamination.
– U.S. Department of Agriculture
8. July 27,
U.S. Department of Agriculture – (Colorado) Good Food Concepts,
LLC D.B.A. Ranch Foods Direct recalls non-intact beef products due to possible
E.coli O157:H7 contamination. Good Food Concepts, LLC, doing business as
Ranch Foods Direct, issued a recall July 26 for approximately 2,606 pounds of
its non-intact beef products sold in 25 variations due to potential E.coli
O157:H7 contamination after Federal health officials discovered a potential
link between the beef products and an E.coli O157:H7 illness outbreak in
Colorado. The products were distributed to wholesale and retail locations in
Colorado. Source: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/recalls-and-public-health-alerts/recall-case-archive/archive/2016/recall-064-2016-release
• Crews reached 10 percent containment July 27 of the Soberanes
Fire which has burned over 23,500 acres, threatens 2,000 structures, and has
destroyed 34 homes and 10 outbuildings in California. – Reuters
13. July 28,
Reuters – (California) Central California wildfire destroys 34 homes,
forces 350 to evacuate. Crews reached 10 percent containment of the
Soberanes Fire July 27 which has burned over 23,500 acres, threatens 2,000
structures, and has destroyed 34 homes and 10 outbuildings between Big Sur and
the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Approximately 3,000 firefighters in the State
reached 40 percent containment of the 38,350-acre Sand Fire burning in the
Angeles National Forest.
• The U.S. President’s administration released Presidential Policy
Directive/PPD-41 July 26 detailing the U.S. Cyber Incident Coordination,
setting forth principles that govern the Federal Government’s response to cyber
incidents. – Whitehouse.gov See item 19 below in
the Information Technology Sector
Financial Services Sector
3. July 27,
SecurityWeek – (International) PayPal abused in banking trojan distribution
campaign. Proofpoint security researchers discovered malicious actors were
distributing the Chthonic banking trojan, a variant of the Zeus malware, via
legitimate-looking PayPal emails to request money from users by sending money
request messages claiming an illicit $100 transfer was made to the victim’s
account which could be returned by clicking the malicious Goo.gl link that
redirects the user to “katyaflash[.]com/pp.php,” where the malware is
downloaded onto the device in the form of an obfuscated JavaScript file that
connects to the command and control (C&C) server. Researchers discovered
the malware was also downloading a previously undocumented second-stage payload
dubbed AZORult.
4. July 27,
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York –
(National) Registered broker pleads guilty to securities fraud for
participating in a $131 million market manipulation scheme. A former
registered broker pleaded guilty July 27 to defrauding ForceField Energy Inc.,
investors out of $131 million between January 2009 and April 2015 after he and
co-conspirators manipulated the price and volume of traded ForceField shares by
orchestrating the trading of ForceField stock to create the appearance of
interest and trading volume in the stock, and concealing payments to stock
promoters and broker dealers who claimed to be independent of the company,
among other fraudulent means. The charges also state that a ForceField
executive paid kickbacks to the broker in exchange for purchasing company
stocks in his client’s brokerage accounts between October 2014 and April 2015. Source:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/registered-broker-pleads-guilty-securities-fraud-particpating-131-million-market
Information Technology Sector
16. July 28,
SecurityWeek – (International) Many web attacks come from United States:
Sucuri. Researchers at Sucuri analyzed metadata from 30 days of Web traffic
and blocked requests from its firewall product and found that the Structured
Query Language (SQL) injection, brute force, and other exploit attempts had
various browser user agents, more than one-third of the attacks came from the
U.S. followed by Indonesia and China, and that when it came to operating
systems (OS) 45 percent of attacks came from Microsoft Windows. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/many-web-attacks-come-united-states-sucuri
17. July 28,
Help Net Security – (International) Media-stealing Android app targets
developers. Google removed the “HTML Source Code Viewer” app from its Google
Play distribution service after Symantec researchers discovered the malicious
app stole photos and videos from victims’ mobile devices by requesting
permissions to access the device’s external storage. The app targeted all
versions of Android after and including Gingerbread.
18. July 28,
Softpedia – (International) Chrome, Firefox vulnerable to crashes via
search suggestions. Nightwatch Cybersecurity researchers found that Google
Chromium, Android, and Mozilla Firefox do not protect browser built-in search
suggestions via an encrypted Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)
channel, which could allow an attacker on the local channel to intercept search
suggestion inquiries and answer before the search provider. Firefox, Chrome,
and Android are working to address the issue. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/chrome-firefox-vulnerable-to-crashes-via-search-suggestions-506722.shtml
19. July 26,
Whitehouse.gov– (National) Presidential Policy Directive – United States
Cyber Incident Coordination. The U.S. President’s administration released
Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-41 July 26 detailing the U.S. Cyber Incident
Coordination, which sets forth principles that govern the Federal Government’s
response to cyber incidents and the designation of responsibility to certain
Federal agencies, including the FBI and DHS. Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/26/presidential-policy-directive-united-states-cyber-incident
For another story, see item 3 above in the Financial Services Sector
Communications Sector
See item 15 below from the Emergency Services
Sector
15. July 27,
Associated Press – (Oklahoma) AT&T: Oklahoma’s 911 emergency telephone
service restored. AT&T Inc., reported that emergency 9-1-1 service was
restored after call routing was impacted for approximately 2 hours July 27 in
portions of Oklahoma. The company is investigating the source of the outage,
which involved a power issue at a facility in the Oklahoma City area.
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