Tuesday, November 1, 2016



Complete DHS Report for November 1, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

• Approximately 6,500 gallons of crude oil spilled at the Prospect Energy, LLC processing facility in Larimer County, Colorado, October 27 after a pipe valve on a tank battery used to store crude oil failed. – Fort Collins Coloradoan

2. October 28, Fort Collins Coloradoan – (Colorado) 150 barrels of oil spill in Fort Collins. Approximately 6,500 gallons of crude oil spilled at the Prospect Energy, LLC processing facility in Larimer County, Colorado, October 27 after a pipe valve on a tank battery used to store crude oil failed. Authorities reported that most of the oil was concentrated on the top soil and contained to the spill site. Source: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2016/10/28/estimated-150-barrels-oil-spill-fort-collins/92897686/

• Officials in Syracuse, New York, reported that at least 5 million gallons of sewage were dumped into Ley Creek October 29 while crews worked to repair a pipe that spilled at least 7 million gallons of sewage into Onondaga Lake following heavy rains October 21. – Syracuse Post-Standard

13. October 30, Syracuse Post-Standard – (New York) County dumps 5 million gallons of sewage into Ley Creek to fix busted pipe. Officials in Syracuse, New York, announced October 30 that at least 5 million gallons of sewage were dumped into Ley Creek October 29 while crews worked to bypass and repair a separate pipe that spilled at least 7 million gallons of sewage into Onondaga Lake following heavy rains October 21. Source: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2016/10/5_m_gallons_of_sewage_dumped_in_ley_creek_while_fixing_busted_pipe.html

• Imperva security researchers discovered that roughly 49,657 unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses across 164 countries are hosting Internet of Things (IoT) devices infected with the Mirai botnet. – SecurityWeek See item 18 below in the Information Technology Sector

• Massachusetts officials formally launched October 28 the start of a $2.4 million safety upgrade project to the Van Horn Dam in Springfield. – Springfield Republican

27. October 28, Springfield Republican – (Massachusetts) Springfield launches $2.4 million Van Horn Dam safety upgrade 8 years after it was cited as 'high hazard'. Massachusetts officials formally launched October 28 the start of a $2.4 million safety upgrade project to the Van Horn Dam in Springfield, which includes removing trees and stumps from the dam site to decrease erosion and possible dam failure, armoring an upstream section of the dam to reduce erosion, and repairing the dam’s concrete outlet structure, among other improvements. Officials expect the project to be completed by May 2017. Source: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/10/springfield_launches_van_horn.html
  
Financial Services Sector

4. October 28, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Indiana – (National) Defendants entered pleas of guilty today. The owner of Munster, Indiana-based Weichman & Associates PC and Medical Management & Data Services and 3 co-conspirators pleaded guilty October 28 for conspiring to conceal a nearly $2 million tax debt to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and neglecting to report to the IRS at least $100,000 in income, hiding hundreds of thousands of dollars from the business owner’s bankruptcy creditors in January 2011, and withdrawing $95,000 from a client’s retirement fund in April 2012. The charges also state that the owner stole $10,000 from one of his physician clients in a bank fraud scheme where at least $660,000 was illegally taken from that client’s account. Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndin/pr/jack-weichman-defendants-entered-pleas-guilty-today

5. October 28, Arlingtonva.us – (Virginia) Credit card cloning suspects arrested by police. The owners of Caffe Aficionado in Arlington, Virginia, were arrested October 28 for allegedly participating in a money laundering and credit card fraud scheme where the suspects redeemed hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of pre-payable gift cards using cloned credit cards since at least November 2015. Source: https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/release/credit-card-cloning-suspects-arrested-by-police/

For another story, see item 14 below from the Government Facilities Sector

14. October 28, Wichita Eagle – (Kansas) County announces department affected by $566,000 fraud. Sedgwick County, Kansas officials announced October 28 that the Sedgwick County Division of Finance was defrauded out of approximately $566,000 sometime between September 23 and October 25. The fraudulent activity remains under investigation. Source: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article111117877.html

Information Technology Sector

17. October 30, Softpedia – (International) Serial spammer pleads guilty, faces up to ten years in jail. A Florida resident pleaded guilty October 27 for orchestrating spam campaigns where he and 2 co-conspirators operated a legitimate business named A Whole Lot of Nothing LLC, which provided on-demand spam campaigns for legitimate business and illegal parties, including groups selling untested pharmaceutical drugs. The charges state the trio built botnets to distribute their spam, constructed proxy networks to avoid detection, and hacked into at least four corporate networks and Websites in order to take control of corporate emails and servers to distribute spam from devices that were not blacklisted, among other malicious activities.Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/serial-spammer-pleads-guilty-faces-up-to-ten-years-in-jail-509807.shtml

18. October 28, SecurityWeek – (International) Mirai botnet infects devices in 164 countries. Imperva security researchers discovered that roughly 49,657 unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses across 164 countries are hosting Internet of Things (IoT) devices infected with the Mirai botnet. The researchers found that 10 percent of the IP addresses hosting Mirai-infected devices are located in the U.S. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/mirai-botnet-infects-devices-164-countries

19. October 28, SecurityWeek – (International) LDAP attack vector makes terabit-scale DDoS attacks possible. Corero Network Security researchers reported a newly observed zero-day distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack vector that relies on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) could be used to leverage an amplification factor of 46 times and a peak of 55 times to carry out terabit-scale DDoS events against a target. Corero also reported that an attacker could send a simple query to a compromised reflector supporting the Connectionless LDAP service (CLDAP) to make it appear as though the query originated from the intended victim, causing unwanted network traffic to be immediately sent to the attacker’s target. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/ldap-attack-vector-makes-terabit-scale-ddos-attacks-possible

Communications Sector

20. October 28, KTVI 2 St. Louis; DownDetector.com – (National) AT&T phone and internet outages reported across the Midwest. About 1,085 AT&T Inc. customers in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago, among other cities across the Midwest experienced an Internet and phone service outage for several hours October 28. Source: http://fox2now.com/2016/10/28/att-phone-and-internet-outages-reported-across-the-midwest/

For another story, see item 16 below from the Emergency Services Sector

16. October 28, WCAU 10 Philadelphia – (Pennsylvania) Verizon reports Montgomery County 9-1-1 system fully restored overnight. Verizon Wireless reported October 28 that emergency 9-1-1 service in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, was fully restored after callers using a landline experienced degraded service for several hours October 27 – October 28 after a contractor cut a conduit containing communication lines. Emergency calls or messages made via cell phones were not impacted. Source: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Montgomery-County-Experiencing-Problems-With-9-1-1-System-398917481.html