Complete DHS Report for October 18, 2016
Daily Report
Top Stories
• Crews restored power October 17 to nearly all 174,581 customers
in the San Francisco Bay Area who were without power between October 13 and
October 16 following severe storms in the area. – KRON 4 San Francisco
1. October 17, KRON 4 San
Francisco – (California) Storm causes 200k power outages across Bay
Area. Crews restored power October 17 to nearly all 174,581 customers in
the San Francisco Bay Area who were without power between October 13 and
October 16 following severe storms in the area. Source:
http://kron4.com/2016/10/17/storm-causes-200k-power-outages-across-bay-area/
• A former accountant at an investment advising company in
Massachusetts pleaded guilty October 14 to embezzling over $3.5 million from
his employer between April 2011 and November 2015. – U.S. Attorney’s Office,
District of Massachusetts See item 4 below in the Financial Services Sector
• Michigan Turkey Producers issued a recall October 15 for
approximately 54,011 pounds of its turkey breast products sold in 3 variations
due to potential contamination with an unidentified black material. – U.S.
Department of Agriculture
12. October 15, U.S.
Department of Agriculture – (Florida; Puerto Rico) Michigan Turkey
Producers recalls turkey products due to possible foreign matter contamination.
Michigan Turkey Producers issued a recall October 15 for approximately
54,011 pounds of its turkey breast products sold in 3 variations due to
potential contamination with an unidentified black material discovered after
the firm received a customer complaint. No injuries or illnesses have been
reported and the products were shipped to a distribution center in Florida, as
well as food services in Florida and Puerto Rico. Source: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/recalls-and-public-health-alerts/recall-case-archive/archive/2016/recall-097-2016-release
• Tampa Electric officials discovered October 13 that about 14,400
gallons of diluted wastewater spilled into Hillsborough Bay near Tampa,
Florida, after a Tampa Bay Water project damaged a domestic waterline. – Tampa
Bay Times
15. October 14, Tampa Bay
Times – (Florida) Big Bend project spills 14,000 gallons of wastewater
into Hillsborough Bay. Tampa Electric officials discovered October 13 that
roughly 14,400 gallons of diluted wastewater and groundwater spilled into
Hillsborough Bay near Tampa, Florida, after a Tampa Bay Water project near the
Big Bend Power Station damaged a domestic waterline. Officials do not believe
the spill poses a risk to public health or safety. Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/big-bend-project-spills-14000-gallons-of-wastewater-into-hillsborough-bay/2298165
Financial Services Sector
4. October 14, U.S.
Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts – (Massachusetts) Accountant
pleads guilty to stealing $3.5 million from employer. A former accountant
at an investment advising company in Massachusetts pleaded guilty October 14 to
embezzling over $3.5 million from his employer between April 2011 and November
2015 after he made wire transfers in excess of $3 million from his employer’s
accounts to his personal accounts and forged signatures on approximately 46
checks payable to himself totaling roughly $456,000. The charges state the
accountant concealed his scheme by making fraudulent entries in his employer’s
electronic accounting system and modifying online bank statements before
forwarding them to his manager.
For another story, see item 19
below in the Information
Technology Sector
Information Technology Sector
18. October 17,
SecurityWeek – (International) Siemens patches flaws in SIMATIC, license
manager products. Siemens released software updates addressing several
vulnerabilities in its SIMATIC and Automation License Manager (ALM) products
after Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered ALM was plagued with a critical path
traversal issue that could allow a remote attacker to upload files to the disk,
create and remove files, or move existing files via specially crafted packets,
as well as a denial-of-service (DoS) flaw, and a Structured Query Language
(SQL) injection flaw. Siemens also patched two low severity issues in its
SIMATIC STEP 7 engineering software after Positive Technologies researchers
found the flaws can be exploited by a local attacker to access sensitive
information and to brute-force pre-shared keys that protect device-to-device
communications. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/siemens-patches-flaws-simatic-license-manager-products
19. October 16, Softpedia
– (International) Locky ransomware accounted for 97 percent of all
malicious email attachments. Proofpoint released its Quarterly Threat Summary
for quarter 3 (Q3) 2016, which reported that the Locky ransomware was found in
96.8 percent of all malicious spam email attachments and typically manifests
itself as a ZIP file with a JavaScript file inside, Microsoft Office documents
with malicious macro scripts, Hypertext Markup Language Application (HTA)
files, or Microsoft Windows Script Files (WSF). The report also stated that
banking trojans continue to be a pervasive threat, while exploit kit (EK)
activity has decreased 65 percent since Q2. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/locky-ransomware-accounted-for-97-percent-of-all-malicious-email-attachments-509335.shtml
Communications Sector
20. October 14, Softpedia
– (International) Mirai IoT DDoS trojan now targets cellular network
equipment. Sierra Wireless warned customers October 13 that its Airlink
wireless routers and gateways deployed with 3G and 4G LTE cellular networks are
at risk of having their devices infected by the Mirai Internet of Things (IoT)
trojan and employed in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The
company reported that rebooting the gateway will remove the infection, as the malware
is located in the memory. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/mirai-iot-ddos-trojan-now-targets-cellular-network-equipment-509310.shtml