Complete DHS Report for May 27, 2016
Daily Report
Top Stories
• Seattle City Light is investigating the cause of a power outage
that knocked out power to downtown Seattle for about 1 hour May 25, causing 60
percent of the area to lose service. – Seattle Times
1. May 26,
Seattle Times – (Washington) Power restored after major, hour-long outage in
downtown Seattle. Seattle City Light is investigating the cause of a power
outage that knocked out power to downtown Seattle for about 1 hour May 25,
causing 60 percent of the area to lose service and 12,000 electric meters to be
affected. Traffic was gridlocked during the outage and several people were
trapped in the elevators of various buildings.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized May 26 a new
food safety rule that requires food facilities to establish food defense
monitoring procedures and corrective actions as part of an effort to prevent
wide-scale public health harm. – U.S. Food and Drug Administration
8. May 26,
U.S. Food and Drug Administration – (National) FDA issues final
food defense regulation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized
May 26 a new food safety rule under its Food Safety Modernization Act that
requires foreign and domestic food facilities to complete and maintain a
written food defense plan that assesses the companies’ potential
vulnerabilities to deliberate contamination intended to cause wide-scale public
health risks, to identify and implement mitigation strategies to address the
vulnerabilities, and to establish food defense monitoring procedures and
corrective actions, among other requirements as part of an effort to prevent
wide-scale public health harm and to protect the food supply.
• The CEO of NS1 reported that the company experienced dozens of
large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and attacks against the
company’s upstream network providers. – Help Net Security See item 18 below in
the Information Technology Sector
• Officials reported that at least three people were injured and
one person was killed May 25 after a suspect opened fire at the Irving Plaza
music venue in New York City during a music performance. – CNN
22. May 26,
CNN – (New York) One killed in shooting at rapper’s concert. The
New York Police Department reported that at least three people were injured and
one person was killed May 25 after a suspect opened fire at the Irving Plaza
music venue in New York City during a music performance, prompting about 950
attendees to evacuate the building.
Financial Services Sector
5. May 25,
U.S. Department of Justice – (West Virginia) West Virginia business
owners indicted for failing to pay employment taxes. The owners of Taylor
Contracting/Taylor Ready-Mix LLC and Bluegrass Aggregates LLC in West Virginia
were indicted May 25 after the pair failed to collect, account for, and pay
more than $1 million in Federal income taxes, Social Security taxes, and
Medicare taxes withheld from the wages of its employees to the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service from 2007 – 2010. Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/west-virginia-business-owners-indicted-failing-pay-employment-taxes
Information Technology Sector
17. May 26,
SecurityWeek – (International) “Wekby” group uses DNS requests for C&C
communications. Security researchers from Palo Alto Networks discovered
that an advanced persistent threat (APT) group named Wekby, APT 18, Dynamite
Panda, and TG-0416, was using the “pisloader” malware to infiltrate a system
via Domain Name System (DNS) requests for command & control (C&C)
communications, which allows the malware to bypass security products. The “pisloader”
malware was believed to be a variant of the HTTPBrowser, a remote access trojan
(RAT). Source: http://www.securityweek.com/wekby-group-uses-dns-requests-cc-communications
18. May 26,
Help Net Security – (International) DNS provider NS1 hit with multi-faceted DDoS
attacks. The CEO of NS1 reported that during the week of May 16 the company
experienced dozens of large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks
including simple volumetric attacks, complex direct Domain Name System (DNS)
lookup attacks, and attacks against the company’s upstream network providers.
The motive behind the attacks is unknown, but the attacks were seen targeting
the DNS, content delivery network (CDN), and Internet infrastructure industries
in Europe, U.S., and Asia. Source: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/05/26/dns-ddos-ns1/
19. May 26,
Softpedia – (International) Hackers prefer file upload, XSS, and SQLi
bugs when attacking WordPress sites. Check Point released a report that
analyzed telemetry data from its security products and attacks against
WordPress plugins which revealed that attackers were using automated scripts to
scan WordPress Web sites for vulnerabilities to exploit payloads and use the
collected information to create a security status report and compromise the Web
sites. Attackers compromised the Web sites with malicious redirects, sending
visitors to exploit kit (EK) sites, and leveraged File Upload vulnerabilities. Source:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/hackers-prefer-file-upload-xss-and-sqli-bugs-when-attacking-wordpress-sites-504496.shtml
20. May 25,
Softpedia – (International) FBI: Ransomware complaints doubled in 2015. The
FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its 2015 Internet Crime
Report which revealed that during 2015, the FBI recorded 2,453 ransomware
complaints and estimated that the recorded infections caused over $1.6 million
in damages to the victims. Reports by Enigma Software and Kaspersky found that
ransomware campaigns grew with a 14 percent increase from year-to-year. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/fbi-ransomware-complaints-doubled-in-2015-504492.shtml
Communications Sector
21. May 25,
Tampa Bay Times – (Florida) Seffner man fined $48,000 by FCC for using cell
phone jammer on daily commute. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission
issued a $48,000 fine May 25 to a Seffner man for illegally interfering with
cellular service along Interstate 4 and disrupting police communications for up
to 2 years via a cell phone jamming device. Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/seffner-man-fined-48000-by-fcc-for-using-cell-phone-jammer-on-daily-commute/2278972