Friday, August 26, 2016



Complete DHS Report for August 26, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

• Crews worked August 23 to restore power to approximately 75,000 Harris County, Texas residents after a transformer faulted and caught fire at the CenterPoint Energy substation in northwest Harris County. – KTRK 13 Houston

1. August 24, KTRK 13 Houston – (Texas) Most power restored after CenterPoint substation fire. Crews worked to restore power to approximately 75,000 Harris County, Texas residents August 23 after a transformer faulted and caught fire at the CenterPoint Energy substation in northwest Harris County, prompting officials to issue a 3-hour shelter-in-place for nearby residents, evacuate Hamilton Middle School, and close the Lone Star College Cypress-Fairbanks location until August 24. Source: http://abc13.com/news/thousands-without-power-after-centerpoint-substation-fire/1482037/

• The Georgia Environmental Protection Division finished removing 500,000 gallons of contaminated water from an unnamed tributary of the Nickajack Creek in Smyrna, Georgia, August 22 after 2,300 gallons of cleaning fluid leaked into the creek from an Apollo Technologies facility August 13. – Atlanta Journal-Constitution

11. August 23, Atlanta Journal-Constitution – (Georgia) Cleanup of chemical spill in creek complete near Cobb homes. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division finished removing 500,000 gallons of contaminated water from an unnamed tributary of the Nickajack Creek in Smyrna, Georgia, August 22 after 2,300 gallons of carburetor cleaning fluid leaked into the creek from an Apollo Technologies facility August 13. Source: http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/cleanup-chemical-spill-cobb-county-creek-coming-al/nsKyM/

• LeakedSource reported that over 25 million user records and private data were leaked from 3 of Mail.ru forums, including Cross Fire game, ParaPa Dance City game, and Ground War: Tank game due to outdated vBulletin forum software. – Softpedia

22. August 24, Softpedia – (International) Mail.ru forums hack compromises over 25 million user accounts. LeakedSource reported that over 25 million user records from 3 of Mail.ru forums, including Cross Fire game, ParaPa Dance City game, and Ground War: Tank game were leaked due to outdated vBulletin forum software that was compromised to allow hackers access to data including usernames, passwords, and emails, among other information. The Mail.Ru Group stated that the leaked passwords were no longer valid and were associated with forums of game projects the company previously acquired. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/mail-ru-forums-hack-compromises-over-25-million-user-accounts-507599.shtml

• The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation awarded American Hydro of York, Pennsylvania a $19 million contract August 11 to update pump generation units at the John W. Keys III Pump Generating Plant near Spokane, Washington. – U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

23. August 22, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – (Idaho) Reclamation awards $19 million contract for pump-generating plant upgrades at Grand Coulee Dam. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced August 22 it awarded American Hydro of York, Pennsylvania a $19 million contract August 11 to replace and update equipment for pump generation units 5 and 6 at the John W. Keys III Pump Generating Plant at the Grand Coulee Dam near Spokane, Washington, in order to provide greater efficiency, flood control, water delivery, and hydropower production at the facility. The updates are part of a 20-year modernization effort that is expected to be completed in January 2020.

Financial Services Sector

See item 19 below in the Information Technology Sector

Information Technology Sector

17. August 25, SecurityWeek – (International) Cisco updates ASA software to address NSA-linked exploit. Cisco began releasing updates for its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software resolving a remote code execution flaw leveraged by a zero-day exploit, dubbed EXTRABACON which affects the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) code of the ASA software and can be exploited by a remote hacker to cause a system crash or execute arbitrary code. Cisco advised users to update their installations to version 9.1.7(9) or later. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/cisco-updates-asa-software-address-nsa-linked-exploit

18. August 25, SecurityWeek – (International) Attackers can target enterprises via GroupWise collaboration tool. Micro Focus released patches resolving critical vulnerabilities in its GroupWise collaboration tool, including two reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws that can be abused to execute arbitrary JavaScript and hijack and admin’s session, a persistent XSS vulnerability affecting the GroupWise WebAccess message viewer that can be exploited by embedding malicious code in an email and getting the victim to interact with the message, and a heap-based buffer overflow flaw affecting the GroupWise Post Office Agent and GroupWise WebAccess that could be used to achieve remote code execution, among other vulnerabilities. Micro Focus advised users to update their installations to GroupWise 2014 R2 SP1 HP1 or later. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/attackers-can-target-enterprises-groupwise-collaboration-tool

19. August 24, SecurityWeek – (International) Android botnet uses Twitter for receiving commands. Researchers from ESET reported a new Android backdoor, dubbed Android/Twitoor impersonates a MMS program or adult content player application and uses a defined Twitter account to receive commands after being launched, which either instruct the backdoor to download malicious applications, including mobile banking malware onto the infected device or to switch to a different command and control (C&C) Twitter account. Researchers also found that Twitoor botnet’s transmitted messages are encrypted and use new communication methods, such as social networks in order to remain undetected and more difficult to block.

20. August 24, SecurityWeek – (International) Flaw allow attackers to hijack VMware vRA appliances. VMware addressed vulnerabilities affecting its vRealize Automation (vRA) appliances, including a flaw in vRA 7.0.x appliance via port 40002 that can be abused for remote code execution and allow an attacker to gain access to a low-privileged account on the affect device, and a second flaw in vRA 7.0.x and VMware Identity Manager 2.x that can be exploited by a hacker with access to a low-privileged account to obtain root privileges. VMware reported attackers could combine the vulnerabilities to compromise and take control of a vRA appliance and urged users to update vRA to version 7.1.

For another story, see item 22 above in Top Stories

Communications Sector

Nothing to report