Thursday, March 17, 2016



Complete DHS Report for March 17, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) reported that its 6 transit lines and 91 rail stations will be shut down for approximately 29 hours March 16 – March 17 while crews conduct inspections on 600 “jumper cables.” – USA Today

5. March 16, USA Today – (Maryland; Virginia; Washington, D.C.) Washington, D.C., subway to close for 29 hours for inspection. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) reported that its 6 transit lines and 91 rail stations, which carry more than 700,000 passengers will be shut down for approximately 29 hours March 16 – March 17 while crews conduct inspections on 600 “jumper cables” in the system following an unexpected fire at the McPherson Square station March 14. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/03/15/reports-washington-dc-metro-close-24-hours-inspection/81823344/

Authorities arrested and charged two Margaretville, New York residents March 16 for allegedly stealing more than 3,000 hydrocodone and oxycodone tablets from Miller’s Drug Store in February. – Oneonta Daily Star

15. March 16, Oneonta Daily Star – (New York) Two accused of stealing Rx pills. The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office arrested and charged two Margaretville residents March 16 for allegedly stealing more than 3,000 hydrocodone and oxycodone tablets from Miller’s Drug Store on Main Street overnight February 1 – February 2. The pair sold or consumed the pills and attempted to conceal and destroy other evidence. Source: http://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/two-accused-of-stealing-rx-pills/article_ff556bf2-c9ca-5e48-b8cc-a329e03ffdaa.html

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released voluntary guidelines March 15 urging health care providers to limit opioid prescriptions for patients and offer alternative treatments for chronic pain. – Wall Street Journal

18. March 15, Wall Street Journal – (National) CDC issues guidelines to limit opioid painkiller prescriptions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released voluntary guidelines March 15 urging primary-care clinicians, doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners to limit opioid prescriptions for patients and offer alternative treatments for chronic pain or prescribe the lowest effective dosage possible. The CDC also recommends limiting prescriptions to 3 – 7 day doses, among other guidelines. Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-issues-guidelines-to-limit-opioid-painkiller-prescriptions-1458061340

Phantom and Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) released a report stating that 74 percent of large companies regularly disregard security alerts due to the increase in information technology (IT) activities that pull staff from daily workflow tasks. – SecurityWeek See item 23 below in the Information Technology Sector

Financial Services Sector

3. March 15, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – (International) SEC charges operator of Ponzi scheme that claimed to offer “bridge loans” to Jamaican businesses. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced March 15 that Federal officials arrested a Miami resident March 13 for allegedly operating a $10 million Ponzi scheme where he solicited over 21 investors across 6 States and Washington, D.C. by claiming their money would be used for “bridge loans” to Jamaican businesses awaiting funds from bank loans, and touting investment opportunities and investment-funded projects in Jamaica via YouTube videos. The investment funds were instead used to pay other investors and for personal expenses. Source: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-55.html

4. March 15, KBAK 29 Bakersfield/KBFX 58 Bakersfield – (National) Securities and Exchange Commission: Bakersfield Investment Club a fraud. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the week of March 7 charges against the chief executive officer (CEO) of Bakersfield Investment Club in California after he ran a $11 million fraudulent investment scheme where he purchased real estate and businesses with money from over 400 investors and titled the properties in his name in order to defraud investors and use the money to fund personal expenses.

Information Technology Sector

20. March 16, SecurityWeek – (International) Radamant C&C server manipulated to spew decryption keys. Security researchers from InfoArmor reported that a flaw in Radamant ransomware’s command and control (C&C) server could potentially allow researchers to decrypt victims’ files without requiring user interaction by registering the infected machine within the malware control center via a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) POST request. Researchers reported the request needs to contain public and private encryption keys, as well as a unique identifier of the bot to bypass the filter and avoid additional vulnerability exploits.

21. March 16, The Register – (International) VMware vRealizes that vRealize has XSS bugs on Linux. Virtzilla released its first maintenance updates in version 7.0.1 of its vRealize Automation product in Linux systems after discovering that a pair of cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities could compromise a user’s workstation. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/16/vmware_vrealizes_that_vrealize_has_xss_bugs_on_linux/

22. March 15, Infosecurity Magazine – (International) Amex investigates possible data breach. American Express officials reported that it is investigating a potential data breach in California after one of its third-party service providers was compromised and potentially exposed customer names, account numbers, expiration dates, and other personal information. Officials reported the investigation was conducted as a precautionary measure.

23. March 15, SecurityWeek – (International) Suffocating volume of security alerts challenge incident response. Phantom and Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) released a report stating that 74 percent of large companies regularly disregard security alerts due to the increase in information technology (IT) activities that pull staff from daily workflow tasks. With the increase in IT activities, the report stated companies face challenges in monitoring incident response (IR) processes from end-to-end, maintaining the high volume of security alerts and external threat intelligence, and coordinating between information technology (IT) and security teams.

24. March 15, SecurityWeek – (International) Google tracks use of HTTPS on top 100 websites. Google released its transparency report March 15 that tracks the progress of encryption efforts for its own products and the world’s most visited Web sites, as well as includes a new tracking service that monitors the state of Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) used on the world’s top 100 third-party Web sites. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/google-tracks-use-https-top-100-websites

Communications Sector

Nothing to report