Friday, February 12, 2016



Complete DHS Report for February 12, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

• Entergy Corp. officials in New York reported February 10 that samples from monitoring wells revealed that tritium levels were 740 times over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limit in water following a February 5 incident. – Associated Press

1. February 11, Associated Press – (New York) Critics decry radioactive leak at Indian Point nuclear plant. Authorities are investigating after Entergy Corp. officials reported February 10 that samples from its monitoring wells revealed tritium levels were 740 times over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limit in drinking water following a February 5 incident at the Buchanan facility that spilled radioactive water containing tritium into an underground monitoring well. Officials reportedly believe that the high levels of tritium do not pose a public health risk. Source: http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20160211/critics-decry-radioactive-leak-at-indian-point-nuclear-plant

• Federal and State officials announced February 10 that two men were arrested in Kansas for operating a $2 billion Internet lending enterprise that charged millions of people with inflated interest rates. – U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York See item 6 below in the Financial Services Sector

• A heavy snow storm in Ohio shut down Interstate 90 for more than 2 hours February 10, while officials investigated a crash involving more than 15 semi-trucks and several other vehicles. – Weather.com

11. February 10, Weather.com – (Ohio) Multi-vehicle collision on snowy I-90 in Lake County, Ohio: Fatalities, injuries reported. A heavy snow storm in Lake County shut down Interstate 90 for more than 2 hours February 10, after a crash involving more than 15 semi-trucks and several other vehicles injured 17 people and sent 3 others to the hospital for critical injuries. Source: https://weather.com/news/news/lake-county-ohio-multi-vehicle-crash-collision

• Security researchers from Trend Micro discovered over 1,163 malicious trojanized Android application packages (APK) in the Google Play store through third party apps that allowed attackers to remotely access private information. – Help Net Security See item 23 below in the Information Technology Sector

Financial Services Sector

5. February 10, Newark Star-Ledger – (New Jersey) Central figure in alleged $3M credit card scam arrested. A New York man was arrested February 10 for his role in a $3 million credit card fraud scheme based in Hudson County, New Jersey, where he allegedly provided stolen Social Security numbers to a group of 12 co-conspirators in order for them to create fake identities as part of a bust-out scheme to open bank accounts and obtain credit cards, deposit bad checks to make payments on the cards and inflate lines of credit, and use shell companies to increase credit limits through fake transactions. The co-conspirators are also facing Federal charges for their roles in the scheme. Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/central_figure_in_3m_credit_card_scam_arrested.html

6. February 10, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York – (National) Manhattan U.S. Attorney announces charges against owner of, and attorney for, $2 billion unlawful internet payday lending enterprise. Federal and New York State officials announced February 10 that 2 men were arrested in Kansas for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) after the pair operated a $2 billion nationwide Internet lending enterprise which charged more than 4.5 million people with interest rates between 400 – 700 percent for payday loans from 1997 – 2013. The pair attempted to evade liability and claim sovereign immunity by entering into an agreement with several Native American tribal corporations to fraudulently claim that they owned and operated parts of the payday lending enterprise while receiving kickbacks from the scheme. Source: http://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-charges-against-owner-and-attorney-2-billion-unlawful

7. February 10, SecurityWeek – (International) Dyre Trojan attacks inactive since mid-November sources say. Security researchers discovered that the Dyre trojan, previously seen targeting international banking companies, has been inactive since November 2015 and researchers allegedly believe the Dridex banking trojan might be using the same key developers or management to replicate attack scheme concepts as the Dyre trojan. Researchers advised users to install an email security solution to protect against malicious emails and to avoid opening emails from unknown sources. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/dyre-trojan-attacks-inactive-mid-november-sources-say

Information Technology Sector

21. February 11, Softpedia – (International) Severe vulnerability affects Cisco ASA VPN server equipment. Cisco released patches for a buffer overflow vulnerability in its firewall equipment embedded in several versions of its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software for corporate networks and data centers after a researcher found an issue in the InternetKey Exchange (IKE) protocol that could allow attackers to craft malicious User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets and send it to an ASA device, exploiting the vulnerability. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/severe-vulnerability-affects-cisco-asa-vpn-server-equipment-500265.shtml

22. February 11, SecurityWeek – (International) Hackers invited to target VMware at Pwn2Own 2016. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Trend Micro, and the Zero Day Initiative will be hosting a Pwn2Own 2016 competition that will allow white-hat hackers to hack Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Adobe Flash, Apple Safari, and VMware Workstation in exchange for monetary goods and to show potential vulnerabilities within each software. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/hackers-invited-target-vmware-pwn2own-2016

23. February 11, Help Net Security – (International) Rooting malware lurking in third party Android app stores. Security researchers from Trend Micro discovered over 1,163 malicious trojanized Android application packages (APK) were found in the Google Play store through third party apps that allowed attackers to root the phone, download and install additional malicious apps, and collect and send user device data to a remote server controlled by hackers. Researchers advised app users to check the reputation of any app before downloading. Source: http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=3204

24. February 10, SecurityWeek – (International) SAP patches flaws in xMII, other products. SAP released patches addressing several flaws in its products including a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw, authentication check flaw, and implementation flaws after security researchers found that the vulnerabilities can be exploited to give malicious actors control over plant devices and manufacturing systems in the Manufacturing sector, Energy sector, Oil and Natural gas sector, and the Communications sector. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/sap-patches-flaws-xmii-other-products

Communications Sector

See item 24 above in the Information Technology Sector