Department of Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Daily Report

• According to Reuters, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will increase oversight at the Nebraska Public Power District’s Cooper nuclear power station due to the misconfiguration of two of the plant’s emergency operating procedures. (See item 8)

• The Des Moines Register reports that the flooding in Iowa caused a major environmental disaster. There have been reports of raw sewage flowing into rivers, small chemical tanks popping off their foundations, and gasoline and farm chemicals floating downstream. (See item 22)

Banking and Finance Sector


11. June 17, Buffalo News – (National, International) M&T sues German bank. M&T Bank Corp. sued German banking giant Deutsche Bank AG Monday evening, accusing the global investment banking powerhouse of knowingly selling M&T unsafe mortgage investments. M&T is seeking to recover $182 million in losses and punitive damages. The fraud lawsuit concerns two investment securities M&T purchased from Deutsche Bank in February 2007. At the time, M&T had hoped to earn higher returns than it could on U.S. Treasury bills and high-grade commercial debt issued by a company like General Electric Co. The action by M&T represents the latest effort by an investor that purchased mortgage- backed securities and related bonds to go after the lender or brokerage that sold the investments in the first place. Several such investor lawsuits have been filed by unions, pension funds, hospitals and municipalities such as Springfield, Massachusetts, alleging they were sold inappropriate investments. Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/372073.html

12. June 16, Associated Press – (Indiana) Credit unions investigate weekend withdrawals overseas. More than 100 credit union members in South Bend, Indiana, had money fraudulently taken from their accounts from ATMs over the weekend in places such as Russia, Ukraine, and Nigeria, officials said Monday. The senior vice president for sales and marketing said the withdrawals were not the result of an internal breach. Meanwhile, about 10 Notre Dame Federal Credit Union members reported similar withdrawals since Saturday, said the vice president of marketing and business development. He said there has been “some sort of data breach and fraudulent withdrawals” in Ukraine, Russia and Spain. Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-creditunions-brea,0,4053122.story

Information Technology


33. June 17, IDG News Service – (National) Former ‘spam king’ must pay MySpace $6 million. A Colorado man has been ordered to pay $6 million in damages and legal fees for spamming thousands of MySpace.com users. The man, who was once accused of sending more than 100 million spam messages per day, was sued by MySpace in January 2007 in connection with an August 2006 campaign in which MySpace members were hit with unsolicited messages promoting a Web site called Consumerpromotionscenter.com. The messages were sent from phished MySpace accounts, according to the findings of the court-appointed arbitrator in the case. The messages were sent to a MySpace community that was ill-equipped to deal with any security problems. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9098698&taxonomyId=17&intsrc=kc_top


34. June 16, Computerworld – (International) Researchers urge ransomware victims to try file-recovery app. On Monday, Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, the security company that two weeks ago said it would lead a group effort to crack an encryption key used in a “ransomware” scam offered victims more-practical advice as it published instructions on how to recover data thought lost to the extortionists. Kaspersky added the instructions, which rely on an open-source file-recovery utility, to its writeup of Gpcode.ak, the Trojan horse that it first warned users about on June 8. At the time, Kaspersky said that Gpcode.ak encrypted 143 different file types on compromised Windows PCs and deleted the original unencrypted files before displaying a message telling users that they could ransom the data by purchasing a decrypting tool. A week ago, a Bulgarian security researcher reported that the hackers were demanding $100 to $200 for the unlocking program. Monday, Kaspersky said users might be able to recover the Gpcode.ak-deleted files without paying the ransom. “It is possible to restore a deleted file as long as the data on disk has not been significantly modified,” noted a Kaspersky researcher on the company’s blog. He recommended that users download PhotoRec, an open-source file-recovery utility that runs on Windows and other operating systems. Kaspersky Lab’s analysis of Gpcode.ak has been expanded to include step-by-step instructions on how to recover files the Trojan horse deleted but that actually remain on the drive. The company also crafted a second utility, dubbed “StopGpcode,” that finishes the work PhotoRec starts by restoring the filenames and folder organization of recovered files. Source: http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=cybercrime_and_hacking&articleId=9098338&taxonomyId=82&intsrc=kc_top


Communications Sector


35. June 17, Express-Times – (Pennsylvania; New Jersey) Web woes caused by blaze, RCN says. A fire in a fiber optic line somewhere between the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia caused a disruption in Internet service Sunday for RCN customers, according to a company executive. An announcement Sunday on the company’s automated phone system said a region-wide system failure was caused by a “fiber cut.” Some television customers were affected as well, the company said in an updated telephone message about 9:45 p.m. Sunday. The general manager of RCN-Pennsylvania said Monday he would not have specifics available until Tuesday, but the problem involved an electrical situation that required repairs first by an electric utility. RCN provides cable, Internet, and telephone service in the Lehigh Valley and parts of New Jersey. Source: http://www.nj.com/business/expresstimes/index.ssf?/base/business-1/121367552671560.xml&coll=2


36. June 16, IDG News Service – (National) Microsoft, Nortel offer hosted unified communications. Microsoft and Nortel on Monday introduced a fully hosted unified-communications and collaboration service for carriers, the first entirely hosted carrier-grade offering to come out of an alliance struck between the companies two years ago. At the NXTcomm08 conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft and Nortel unveiled a suite based on Nortel Communications Server 2000, an IP multimedia softswitch, and the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration Version 4.5 (HMC 4.5), a combination of hosted versions of both Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Carriers can use the software to offer hosted unified communications for their customers, which opens up the service to a broader customer base. Unified communications is the term for an integrated, IP-based software or hosted package that gives companies telephony, corporate instant-messaging, e-mail, video-conferencing, and other tools for allowing business workers to collaborate from one user interface. In March, Nortel and Microsoft teamed up to offer a hybrid of hosted and on-premises unified-communications software and services for carriers based on a previous version of HMC. However, customers still had to install some of the infrastructure on site, which is cost-prohibitive for some companies. A fully hosted offering extends the service to small and medium-size businesses that cannot afford to deploy complex infrastructure on site, the companies said. Source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147138/microsoft_nortel_offer_hosted_unified_communications.html

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