Daily Report Monday, February 5, 2007

Daily Highlights

CBS News reports an airport worker at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago has been arrested for smuggling large sums of money and exporting a banned item onto overseas.bound flights, by using his airport privileges. (See item 7)
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation, guidelines that provide advice to states, businesses, families, and local communities on steps to try to buy time until enough vaccine can be available for the whole population. (See item 23)
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Computer World reports New York City has activated the first segment of a massive high.speed wireless data network that will be used by public safety workers as they respond to potential terrorist attacks and other emergencies. (See item 27)

Information Technology and Telecommunications Sector

28. February 02, IDG News Service — German police again the target of cybercrime. Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is once again the target of criminal forces in the Internet. Spam e.mail allegedly sent by the police office is making the rounds in the German.speaking region of Europe. The e.mail contains an attachment with malware that has yet to be classified and is thus slipping by some antivirus programs, according to the BKA Website. The subject line of the e.mail reads "Ermittlungsverfahren," or investigation. Recipients are informed that they face charges and should open the attached document, fill it out and return to the police office. Once opened, the malicious code affects some undisclosed functions of the user's PC and sends itself to the addresses listed in the user's address book. Telephone lines at the BKA were largely blocked Thursday, February 1, as numerous recipients of the malicious spam called a telephone number listed in the e.mail that is the main number of the police's press office.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/02/HNgermanpolicecybe rcrime_1.html

29. February 02, Information Week Windows Vista may corrupt iPod music players, Apple says. Apple Computer is warning customers who use the Windows version of its iTunes software to hold off upgrading to Windows Vista until it can release a patch to fix a number of serious compatibility issues, one of which could result in a corrupt iPod player. Apple, in a statement posted Thursday, February 1, on its Web support forum, says upgrading from Windows 2000 or Windows XP to Vista may result in the inability to play songs purchased and downloaded to the desktop iTunes player from its online iTunes store. Worse, however, is the problem that iPod users could encounter if they try to eject their digital music player from a desktop port using the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature found on the Vista system tray. That, Apple warns ominously, "may corrupt your iPod."
Source: http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=N4N0XWXBHJZM2QSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=197002833

30. February 01, InfoWorld — Vista hole opens door to shout hacking. The honeymoon ended early for Microsoft's Vista operating system, after word spread Wednesday, January 31, about a flaw that could allow remote attackers to take advantage of the new operating system's speech recognition feature. Microsoft researchers are investigating the reports of a vulnerability that could allow an attacker to use the speech recognition feature to run malicious programs on Vista systems using prerecorded verbal commands. The potential security hole was discovered after an online discussion prompted blogger George Ou to try out a speech.based hack. Ou reported on ZD Net on Tuesday that he was able to access the Vista Start menu and, conceivably, run programs using voice commands played over the system's speakers. The speech recognition flaw is novel and notable for being the first publicized hole in the new operating system since the public launch of Vista on Tuesday. The impact of the flaw, however, is expected to be small. Microsoft recommends that users who are concerned about having their computer shout.hacked disable the speaker or microphone, turn off the speech recognition feature, or shut down Windows Media Player if they encounter a file that tries to execute voice commands on their system.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/01/HNvistaspeechbug_1 .html

31. February 01, Information Week — IE phishing bug for Windows XP appears early. Microsoft released a non.security update for Internet Explorer 7 two weeks before the next patch day, and urged Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users to download and install the fix if they notice the browser mysteriously slowing down while surfing. Earlier last week, the developer pushed several updates to Windows Vista users, the new operating system that launched to consumers on Tuesday, January 30, including one to fix performance problems with IE 7's anti.fraud filter. The update has also been posted for IE 7 on Windows XP and Server 2003. The XP and Server 2003 IE 7 anti.phishing filter fix will be included in the February 13 updates, but users can download the patch manually from the company's support site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/928089
Source: http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=N4N0XWXBHJZM2QSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=197002575