Daily Report Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Daily Highlights

A new rule going into effect Tuesday, January 22, will require Americans flying to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean to show a passport to get back into the country. (See item 10)
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USA TODAY reports the Transportation Security Administration will start a nationwide tracking system in about a month to determine how long rail cars filled with lethal materials are stopped on tracks or sit in unsecured storage yards in urban areas. (See item 15)
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The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has designated the President's State of the Union Address as a National Special Security Event and the U.S. Secret Service assumes its legally mandated role as the lead federal agency for the design and implementation of the operational security plan. (See item 26)

Information Technology and Telecommunications Sector

30. January 22, IDG News Service — MySpace files law suit against Spam King. MySpace.com has filed a lawsuit against the self.proclaimed "Spam King" for allegedly blasting the portal with spam through the use of compromised user accounts, the Website said on Monday, January 22. MySpace also seeks a permanent injunction to bar Scott Richter, who has fought with Microsoft and the state of New York over spam, and his affiliates from using the popular social networking site. Richter runs Optinrealbig.com, an e.mail marketing company based in Westminster, CO. MySpace, which is owned by News Corp., also accused Richter of running afoul of the federal CAN.SPAM act and California's anti.spam law. The suit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. MySpace users can send "bulletins" .. a few lines of text .. to blocks of users who are in their circle of friends. That distribution power has made MySpace a frequent target for spammers, who can reach up to thousands of users if they have the log.in and password for a single account.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/22/HNmyspacesuesspamk ing_1.html

31. January 22, IDG News Service — China Mobile buys stake in Pakistani wireless firm. China Mobile Communications, the world's largest mobile phone service provider, took its first major step outside China on Sunday, January 21, sealing a $284 million deal to buy most of the outstanding shares of a wireless operator in Pakistan. The Chinese company, parent company of China Mobile Ltd., agreed to buy 88.9 percent of Paktel Ltd. from Millicom International Cellular, it said in a statement. China Mobile signed the deal after months of talks.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070122/tc_infoworld/8530 3

32. January 22, CNET News — Cyberthreat experts to meet at secretive conference. Internet security experts are gathering at a secretive conference later this week to strategize in their fight against cybercriminals. The meeting on Thursday and Friday, January 25.26, at Microsoft's Redmond, WA, headquarters is slated to bring together representatives from security companies and government and law enforcement officials, as well as others involved in network security. The agenda focuses on botnets and related topics, seen by experts as a prime threat to the Internet. "These events have been a great way to build trust in the security community, which can lead to collaboration and data sharing. This helps in the overall efforts to combat the cybercriminals," said Dave Jevans, chairman of the Anti.Phishing Working Group, who is slated to speak at the event later this week.
Source: http://news.com.com/Cyberthreat+experts+to+meet+at+secretive+conference/2100.7348_3.6151860.html?tag=nefd.lede

33. January 22, VNUNet — Mobile operators urged to prepare for WiMax threat. The impact of WiMax on the mobile telephony industry could be profound, and carriers need to put together strategies concerning the wide area wireless technology now, industry experts urged Monday, January 22. In.Stat warned existing cellular carriers that WiMax may become a big competitor. However, the analyst firm conceded that the technology could also be a great ally, or a minor factor for established mobile operators. "WiMax faces many challenges, including multiple incompatibility standards, different frequency allocations in each country, and expensive consumer devices, " said In.Stat analyst Allen Nogee.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2173166/mobile.operators.p repare.wimax

34. January 22, Sophos — U.S. is worst for malware hosting and spam.relaying: Report. Sophos has published its Security Threat Report 2007, examining the threat landscape over the previous twelve months, and predicting malware and spam developments during 2007. The report reveals that the U.S. hosts more than one third of the Websites containing malicious code identified during 2006, as well as relaying more spam than any other nation. The Sophos Security Threat Report 2007 examines in detail the top ten malware threats of the last year, and also confirms that malware authors are continuing to turn their backs on large.scale attacks in favor of more focused strikes against computer users. Microsoft Windows continues to be the primary target for hackers, with Internet criminals increasingly manufacturing downloading Trojan horses rather than mass.mailing worms to do their dirty work for them.
Report (registration required): http://www.sophos.com/security/whitepapers/sophos.security.threats.2007_wsrus
Source: http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2007/01/secr ep2007.html

35. January 19, eWeek — IEEE 802.11n standard makes progress in London meeting. The long.anticipated 1.10 version of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11n draft standard was approved unanimously in an IEEE task group meeting held in London in mid.January. According to Atheros CTO Bill McFarland, who attended the meeting, all of the 3,000.plus technical comments to the 11n draft 1.0 were resolved, and that in turn resulted in the successful agreement to draft 1.10. According to McFarland's written statement, this is a significant step forward in achieving the next stage of the approval process to an accepted 802.11n draft standard. Last fall, the Wi.Fi Alliance announced that it would publish an interim standard in March so that companies could begin work on 11n products, while giving customers some reason to believe that those products would continue to work when the standard became finalized.
Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2085922,00.asp

36. January 19, Sophos — Storm Trojan's second wave arrives. Sophos has warned that the hackers behind the widespread "Storm Trojan" which was spammed widely across the Internet on Friday, January 19, have now renewed their activities using a new piece of malware, Troj/Dorf.Fam. These latest spam messages, which have a malicious e.mail attachment, have been sighted being sent from computers in 80 different countries so far including U.S., Turkey, South Korea, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Brazil. Subject lines seen so far include: a) Radical Muslim drinking enemies's blood; b) Chinese missile shot down Russian satellite; c) Chinese missile shot down Russian aircraft; d) Chinese missile shot down USA aircraft; e) Chinese missile shot down USA satellite; f) Russian missile shot down USA aircraft; g) Russian missile shot down USA satellite; h) Russian missile shot down Chinese aircraft; i) Russian missile shot down Chinese satellite; j) Saddam Hussein safe and sound!; k) Saddam Hussein alive! Attached to each e.mail is a file with one of the following names: Full Clip.exe, Full News.exe, Full Story.exe, Full Text.exe, Full Video.exe, Read More.exe, or Video.exe.
Source: http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2007/01/stor mreturns.html