Thursday, November 13, 2008
Complete DHS Daily Report for November 13, 2008
Daily Report
Headlines
The Point Pleasant Register reports that employees at the Mountaineer power plant in New Haven, West Virginia, were evacuated Monday after Appalachian Power received a telephone call from a man who claimed a bomb might have been on the premises. A similar call was placed at the John Amos Power Plant in Putnam County, West Virginia, last week. (See item 2)
2. November 11, Point Pleasant Register – (West Virginia) Bomb threat reported at Mountaineer power plant. Employees at Appalachian Power’s Mountaineer plant in New Haven, West Virginia, were evacuated Monday morning as law enforcement officers with the West Virginia State Police searched the area for a bomb. Now, troopers are looking for the man who phoned in the bomb threat. At 6:49 a.m. Monday, the company received a telephone call from a man who claimed a bomb might have been on the premises, according to a sergeant with the Mason County Detachment of the West Virginia State Police. Authorities are continuing their investigation, and K-9 units with the state police that are capable of detecting bomb materials were called in to assist in the investigation. A spokesman for American Electric Power (AEP) said that Monday’s incident was the first bomb threat at the Mountaineer plant. The sergeant said that after a search that spanned several hours, no evidence of a bomb or bomb materials was found at the plant. This is the second bomb threat the company has had the state police investigate. A similar call was placed at the John Amos Power Plant in Putnam County last week, the AEP spokesman said. It was the fifth call made to that plant within several weeks. Officials with the John Amos power plant have doubled the reward to $100,000 for information about the people responsible for the string of bomb threats against the facility. The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, the State Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are involved in the investigation. Source: http://www.mydailyregister.com/articles/2008/11/11/news/news01.txt See also: http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200811120317
According to VNUNet.com, two Los Angeles traffic engineers have pleaded guilty to charges that they hacked into the city’s traffic control computer as part of a union dispute over wages. (See item 13)
13. November 12, VNUNet.com - (California) LA engineers admit traffic light hack. Two Los Angeles traffic engineers have pleaded guilty to charges that they hacked into the city’s traffic control computer as part of a union dispute over wages. The engineers broke into the Los Angeles Automated Traffic Surveillance Center, which controls traffic lights in the city. The pair accessed the system illegally and shut down traffic signals at four critical points in the road network, causing crippling delays. It took four days to sort out the system and get it working normally. The hack is thought to have been part of a pay-bargaining procedure between employers and the Engineers and Architects Association, which represents workers at the Automated Traffic Surveillance Center. But there is no suggestion that the union knew about or condoned the men’s actions. The case highlights the problems of employees gaining control of internal systems during disputes. In August the San Francisco state intranet was hijacked by a rogue systems administrator, which may ultimately cost a million dollars to repair. Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2230263/los-angeles-engineers-pled
Details
Banking and Finance Sector
10. November 12, Reuters – (National) AmEx seeks $3.5 billion from government: report. American Express Co., the fourth largest U.S. credit card issuer, is seeking about $3.5 billion in tax-payer funded capital from the U.S. government, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. It was not clear if the application under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) came before or after the company got Federal Reserve approval to become a bank-holding company. American Express has not announced the application, and it is not known how it would use government money. The company won the approval of the Federal Reserve Board to become a bank holding company on Monday. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE4AB1KG20081112
11. November 12, Bloomberg – (National) Fed said to seek oversight of credit-default swap clearinghouse. The Federal Reserve is seeking to become the lead regulator for clearing trades in the $33 trillion credit-default swap market, according to people with knowledge of the proposal. The Fed, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are discussing a memorandum of understanding that lays out oversight of clearinghouses that would become the central counterparty to credit-default swap trades, according to anonymous sources. The Fed has been pushing the industry to form a clearinghouse that would absorb losses should a market maker fail. Regulators stepped up their efforts after the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September and the near-collapse of American International Group Inc. The New York Fed has been meeting with groups including CME Group Inc., Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and NYSE Euronext to press them to accelerate their progress. Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apgBhmu_U.Fo&refer=home
12. November 12, Reuters – (National) AT&T and Firethorn bring mobile banking to iPhone customers. AT&T and Firethorn, a Qualcomm company, have announced the availability of their mobile banking application for the iPhone. The companies said the Mobile Banking on AT&T lets users securely and efficiently manage their finances, including checking balances and transaction history, transferring funds, receiving offers, viewing and paying bills, and tracking rewards points. The service is now available for all Firethorn financial institution partners, including America First Credit Union, Arvest Bank, BancorpSouth, Carolina First, FirstBank, Mercantile Bank, SunTrust, Synovus, USAA and Wachovia. Additionally, iPhone customers will have access to any new financial institution added in the future. Source: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/11/12/3779816.htm
Information Technology
35. November 11, DarkReading – (International) Relentless web attack hard to kill. Thousands of Websites infected by a new Web attack during the past few days won’t necessarily be safe even after they remove the offending code. “People are recommending that the Website remove the link, but that’s not enough. If it has compromised your machine once, it will do it again. We’ve seen evidence” of this, says a senior virus researcher for Kaspersky Lab, which first discovered this new wave of Web attacks late last week. The SQL injection attacks, which appear to originate from China, appear to have peaked yesterday, according to Kaspersky. Among the infected sites found by Kaspersky were Travelocity.com, countyofventura.org, and missouri.edu. It is not likely, however, that the attacks will reach the volume of SQL injection attacks from earlier this year, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands of sites, mainly because the new attacks are mostly using a new, stealthier, and more closely guarded SQL injection toolkit, says the director of threat intelligence for SecureWorks. The director and his team have been in communication with the Chinese developer of the tool, hoping to procure a copy and reverse-engineer it. The toolkit is protected with a layer of digital rights management and appears to be sold mainly in China. Source: http://www.darkreading.com/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WHSEF1MKYKODWQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=212001872
Communications Sector
36. November 12, Associated Press – (National) IBM to help build broadband network in power lines. IBM Corp. is throwing its considerable weight behind an idea that seemed to have faded: broadband Internet access delivered over ordinary power lines. The technology has been around for decades, but most efforts to implement the idea on a broad scale have failed to live up to expectations. Now, with somewhat scaled-back goals, improved technology, and a dose of low-interest federal loans, IBM is partnering with a small newcomer called International Broadband Electric Communications Inc. (IBEC) to try to make the idea work in rural communities that do not have other broadband options. Their strategy is to sign up electric cooperatives that provide power to sparsely populated areas across the eastern United States. Rather than compete toe-to-toe with large, entrenched cable or DSL providers, IBEC is looking for customers that have been largely left out of the shift to high-speed Internet. IBM has signed a $9.6 million deal with IBEC to provide and install the equipment. IBEC’s chief executive said putting the network in place should take about two years and cost as much as $70 million. The company will have access to 340,000 homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin, about 86 percent of which have no cable or DSL access. Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h34ExZwCNNQ6JAorv-5jiHL3l_TwD94D69O80
37. November 10, Associated Press – (Massachusetts) Cell phone service debuts in Big Dig tunnels. The nation’s most expensive highway project now boasts uninterrupted
cell phone service throughout its network of tunnels, on-ramps and off-ramps in Boston. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority announced Monday that customers of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless can now use their phones inside the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Tunnel on Interstate 93 and the Interstate 90 Connector, which links the Massachusetts Turnpike to the Ted Williams Tunnel and Logan International Airport. The turnpike’s executive director says in addition to helping commuters and public safety officials, wireless phone service will also generate badly needed revenue for the authority. Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2008_11_10_Cell_phone_service_debuts_in_Big_Dig_tunnels/srvc=home&position=recent
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