Thursday, July 19, 2007

Daily Highlights

Counterterrorism investigators in New Jersey now have real−time access to information on potentially hazardous shipments on CSX Transportation, one of the nation's largest rail networks. (See item 17)
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The White House Homeland Security Council on Tuesday, July 17, released a one−yearupdate on the federal government's pandemic influenza preparedness strategy, reporting that it has met 86 percent of the objectives it set for itself a year ago. (See item 30)
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Information Technology and Telecommunications Sector

34. July 18, Sophos — Sophos reveals top 12 spam−relaying countries. Sophos has published its latest report on the top twelve spam−relaying countries over the second quarter of 2007. The U.S. continues to relay more spam than any other nation, accounting for 19.6 percent −− a decrease of just 0.2 percent from the previous quarter. However, Europe now has six entries in the top 12 spam−relaying countries list, which when combined, account for even more spam−relaying than the U.S. Sophos notes that the number of compromised PCs continues to rise steadily in Europe. The top twelve spam−relaying countries are as follows: 1) United States; 2) China (including Hong Kong); 3) South Korea; 4) Poland; 5) Germany; 6) Brazil; 7) France; 8) Russia; 9) Turkey; 10) United Kingdom; 10) Italy; 12) India.
Source: http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2007/07/dirt ydozjul07.html

35. July 18, Reuters — China Internet censors blamed for e−mail chaos. Internet users and company officials in China on Wednesday, July 18, blamed a series of disruptions to cross−border e−mail traffic on adjustments to the country's vast Internet surveillance system. IT company executives offered varying explanations for the e−mail disruptions, but agreed they were not a result of standard technical problems. China is in the midst of a highly publicized campaign to rein in "unhealthy content" in its rapidly growing Internet, whose rapid spread of information regarding incidents of government corruption and rural unrest not reported in conventional media has alarmed China's stability−obsessed leaders. "We have had hundreds of complaints from our clients in the last couple of days," said Richard Ford, technical director of Candis Group, a Beijing−based IT company that processes hundreds of thousands of e−mails a day. Ford said clients complained of e−mails being returned with error messages that could only have been placed by a "third party" between local and foreign mail servers. Several other IT companies managing e−mail servers confirmed Internet users and clients in China and overseas had complained of having trouble sending and receiving e−mails.
Source: http://www.informationweek.com/security/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=KZVNFLPTIUFBWQSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=201001971&articleID=201001971

36. July 17, eWeek — Oracle update plugs security holes. Oracle issued 45 security fixes for its customers Tuesday, July 17, as part of its quarterly Critical Patch Update. The 45 patches plug security holes in Oracle Database, Oracle Application Server, Oracle Collaboration Suite, Oracle E−Business Suite and Applications, and Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise products. The most serious of the flaws are two vulnerabilities affecting Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools and received a Common Vulnerability Scoring System rating of 4.8 out of 10. The flaw can be exploited remotely by attacker but requires user authentication.
Oracle Critical Patch Update: http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/security/critical−patch−updates/cpujul2007.html
Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2159759,00.asp