Thursday, August 25, 2016



Complete DHS Report for August 25, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

• Ford Motor Company issued a recall August 24 for 77,502 of its model years 2013 – 2015 vehicles in select makes due to faulty fuel pump control modules, which may fail and cause the engine to stall while the vehicle is in motion. – TheCarConnection.com

2. August 24, TheCarConnection.com – (National) Recalls: 2017 Ford Escape; 2013-15 Ford Flex, Taurus, Lincoln MKS, MKT; 2015-16 Ford Transit. Ford Motor Company issued a recall August 24 for 77,502 of its model years 2013 – 2015 vehicles in select makes sold in the U.S. due to a faulty fuel pump control module which may fail and cause the engine to stall or shut off while the vehicle is in motion, thereby increasing the risk of an accident. Ford also issued a recall for 17,985 of its model year 2017 Ford Escape vehicles sold in the U.S. due to faulty software that can cause the power windows to close with excessive force, thereby increasing the risk of injury. Source:

• Four private equity fund advisers affiliated with Apollo Global Management, LLC agreed August 23 to pay $52.7 million to settle charges that the advisers misled investors and failed to monitor a senior partner who charged personal expenses to Apollo-advised funds. – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission See item 3 below in the Financial Services Sector

• Four people were arrested in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, August 17 when police discovered 83 magnetic strips in the suspects’ vehicle. – WGNS 1450 AM Murfreesboro See item 4 below in the Financial Services Sector

• Researchers warned that the Navis WebAccess component of the Navis maritime transportation logistics software suite was plagued by a zero-day structured query language (SQL) injection flaw after U.S. ports suffered cyber-attacks. – Softpedia

7. August 23, Softpedia – (International) US ports targeted with zero-day SQL injection flaw. The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) warned that the Navis WebAccess component of the Navis maritime transportation logistics software suite was plagued by a zero-day structured query language (SQL) injection flaw after U.S. ports reported a series of attacks that targeted publicly available news-pages in the Navis application and occurred as a part of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) string due to a flaw in the application’s error reporting system. Navis released a patch for the flaw and ICS-CERT stated all five U.S. companies using the application have applied the necessary patches. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/us-ports-targeted-with-zero-day-sql-injection-flaw-507566.shtml

Financial Services Sector

3. August 23, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – (National) Apollo charged with disclosure and supervisory failures. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced August 23 that 4 private equity fund advisers affiliated with Apollo Global Management, LLC agreed to pay a $52.7 million settlement to resolve claims that the Apollo advisers failed to adequately inform investors about accelerated monitoring fees and benefits the advisers received, failed to disclose information regarding interest payments made on a loan between an adviser’s affiliated general partner and 5 funds, and failed to monitor a senior partner who charged personal expenses to Apollo-advised funds and their portfolio companies. Source: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-165.html

4. August 23, WGNS 1450 AM Murfreesboro – (Tennessee) Four arrested in fraudulent credit card case in Murfreesboro. Four people were arrested in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, August 17 when police discovered 83 magnetic strips in the suspects’ vehicle after the group allegedly used re-encoded credit cards at an area Walmart store to make multiple fraudulent purchases. Source: http://wgnsradio.com/four-arrested-in-fraudulent-credit-card-case-in-murfreesboro--cms-34556

Information Technology Sector

17. August 24, Help Net Security – (International) Leaked EXTRABACON exploit can work on newer Cisco ASA firewalls. Researchers from SilentSignal discovered the EXTRABACON exploit of the zero-day buffer overflow vulnerability affecting the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) code of the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), Private Internet eXchange (PIX), and Firewall Services Module versions 8.4. (4) and earlier leaked by ShadowBrokers, can also be modified to compromise ASA version 9.2.(4). Cisco researchers are working to develop a definite solution of the exploit. Source: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/08/24/extrabacon-newer-cisco-asa/

18. August 23, Softpedia – (International) Two free decrypters available for WildFire ransomware. Kaspersky and Intel McAfee released two decrypters that can unclock files encrypted by WildFire ransomware infections and are available for download from the NoMoreRansom Website. Researchers stated that since July 23, WildFire infected 5,309 devices and earned 136 Bitcoin, or $79,000 from users paying the ransom. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/two-free-decrypters-available-for-wildfire-ransomware-507572.shtml

19. August 23, Softpedia – (International) Face authentication systems can be bypassed using a VR headset & Facebook photos. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported hackers could bypass face authentication systems on the 1U App, BioID, KeyLemon, Mobius, and True Key after finding that if an attacker passes a high-resolution photo through a three-dimensional (3D) modeling software, then transfers the 3D head to a virtual reality (VR) device, a machine running the facial recognition software will authenticate the attacker. Researchers found that in photos where the quality was lower, such as social media photos, the authentication rate was lower. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/face-authentication-systems-can-be-bypassed-using-a-vr-headset-facebook-photos-507568.shtml

For additional stories, see item 7 above in Top Stories and item 21 below in the Communications Sector

Communications Sector

20. August 24, Help Net Security – (International) Cybercriminals select insiders to attack telecom providers. Kaspersky Lab and B2B International researchers reported that 28 percent of all cyber-attacks involve malicious activity by insiders after finding that cybercriminals were using insiders to gain access to telecommunications networks and subscriber data, and recruiting employees through underground message boards, or through blackmail, forcing the employee to distribute spear-phishing campaigns on behalf of the attacker, hand over corporate credentials, or provide information on the company’s internal systems in order to hack a targeted telecommunications firm.

21. August 24, Softpedia – (International) Critical flaws let attackers hijack cellular phone towers. Security researchers from Zimperium discovered three critical flaws affecting software packages from Legba Incorporated, Range Networks, and OsmoCOM, among other vendors running on Base Transceiver Station (BTS) stations, including a flaw in a core BTS software service that exposes the device to external connections, which could allow an attacker to reach the BTS station’s transceiver and take remote control of the BTS station, extract information from the passing data, alter Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) traffic, or crash the station. Researchers also discovered a memory buffer overflow bug that could allow an attacker to run malicious code on the device, and an issue that allows an attacker to remotely execute commands on the station’s transceiver module without administrative credentials. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/critical-flaws-let-attackers-hijack-cellular-phone-towers-507579.shtml