Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Complete DHS Daily Report for June 17, 2009
Daily Report
Top Stories
The Dallas Morning News reports that Oncor says power has been restored to homes and businesses left in the dark by severe storms that hit North Texas last week. The storms caused more than 500,000 customers to lose power, making it one of the worst outages in the region, the company said. (See item 2)
2. June 15, Dallas Morning News – (Texas) Power restored to Dallas-Fort Worth residents left in dark after storms. Oncor says power has been restored to homes and businesses left in the dark by severe storms that walloped North Texas last week. An Oncor spokeswoman said power was restored the evening of June 14 to all customers who could receive power. Storms that hit the Dallas-Fort Worth area starting June 10 caused more than 500,000 customers to lose power, making it one of the worst outages in the region, the company said. Tree limbs hitting power lines and thousands of lightning strikes were to blame for the outages that were scattered in Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin counties, Oncor said. Residents without power struggled to beat the heat as temperatures soared into the mid-90s over the weekend. Temperatures are expected to reach the high 90s and possibly hit 100 degrees later this week, according to the National Weather Service. Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/061609dnmetoutages.823df3c8.html
According to the Associated Press, surprise inspections at 42 Veterans Affairs clinics across the United States revealed that fewer than half had proper training and guidelines for colonoscopies and other endoscopic procedures, says a report released Tuesday by the VA inspector general. (See item 25)
25. June 15, Associated Press – (National) Proper training, guidelines lacking at many VA clinics: report. Surprise inspections at 42 Veterans Affairs clinics across the United States revealed that fewer than half had proper training and guidelines for colonoscopies and other endoscopic procedures, says a report by the VA inspector general. The findings suggest that problems with colonoscopies and other minimally invasive procedures may not be limited to three facilities implicated earlier this year, the Associated Press reported. The surprise inspections conducted in May found that just 18 (43 percent) of the 42 clinics were able to prove that they had properly trained their staffs and that they had standard operating guidelines in place for the procedures, the AP reported. The VA inspector general’s report is to be released Tuesday at a hearing before a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee. Source: http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=628086
Banking and Finance Sector
12. June 15, Reuters – (International) Swiss seek U.S. tax deal before UBS case continues. A looming court case against Swiss bank UBS AG could prove a stumbling block to the United States and Switzerland clinching a tax agreement this week. Switzerland, whose private banks manage around $2 trillion of foreign wealth, aims to secure 12 new bilateral tax deals by the end of 2009 which could allow it to be removed from an OECD “grey list” of states which need to improve tax cooperation and avoid possible sanctions from G20 nations. It has already secured five agreements, with Denmark, Norway, France, Mexico and one other unnamed country, and plans to put the issue to a referendum. Talks between Swiss and U.S. officials restart in Washington on June 16. The Swiss President has asked the U.S. Treasury Secretary to drop a tax evasion case against UBS in return for a new tax accord, which might struggle for ratification in Switzerland if the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) persists with its pursuit of the bank. “We believe there has to be some kind of agreement before July 13 when the IRS and UBS are due to take part in a mini-trial,” said an analyst at Vontobel, adding this could even come in an 11th hour deal on July 12. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLF49225420090615
13. June 15, Chicago Tribune – (Illinois) SEC charges founder of Chicago Sports Webio in fraud. On June 15, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused a defendant of violating federal securities laws, three days after the FBI executed search warrants on the Chicago office of NextStep Financial Services Inc. and NextStep Medical Staffing, two business ventures with ties to the defendant. The SEC said NextStep Financial is a defunct corporation through which the defendant operated his fraudulent scheme. He allegedly sold so-called “guaranteed investment contracts” to investors that promised returns of 10 percent to 16 percent per month. The complaint said the defendant, 48, of Downers Grove, raised more than $11 million from investors in at least 12 states. Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sec-chicago-sports-webio-jun15,0,4162544.story
Information Technology
31. June 16, Washington Post – (International) Apple patches Java flaws, at last. Apple on June 15 shipped updates to plug more than two dozen security holes in its version of Java, including a particularly dangerous flaw that Java maker Sun patched back in early December. In May, Security Fix and others took Apple to task for taking too long to fix Java vulnerabilities. In fact, Apple patches Java flaws on average about six months after Sun had shipped its own updates to fix the same vulnerabilities. At least two different researchers even released proof-of-concept exploits to shame Apple into quickly fixing an easy-to-exploit vulnerability that potential attackers had known about for six months. This Java update appears to address most of the outstanding Java vulnerabilities. From looking at the common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) numbers attached to each of the flaws fixed by Apple’s Java rollup, it looks like this update brings Mac OS X systems to the equivalent of Java 6 Update 13 (Sun recently released Update 14, but there do not appear to be any security related fixes in that bundle). Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/06/apple_patches_java_flaws_at_la.html?wprss=securityfix
Communications Sector
32. June 15, Homeland Security Newswire – (International) Locating VoIP callers in emergencies. U.K. phone companies are developing a system to allow 999, the equivalent of the U.S. 911, operators to pinpoint the location of Internet callers, as concerns that the increasing use of VoIP could mean police, paramedics, and fire crews are unable to attend emergencies promptly. The hope is that the technology could be in place in some ISPs next year, according to the chairman of the industry group leading the work. The majority of calls to 999 are currently made via traditional landlines and mobile phones. BT has seen a ten-fold increase in the volume of VoIP calls to its emergency contact centers in the last 18 months, however. The ability to locate emergency calls is vital as callers may be under duress, too ill to speak, or may simply not know where they are. Traditional landlines can be found by what amounts to a reverse directory lookup, but using the line identity number and mobile phone coordinates approximated by triangulation, solving VoIP location is a more complex problem. Typically, VoIP users are allocated a number by their provider and are able to log in and make calls on any broadband connection. They could be at several sites in one day. That means a solution would require cooperation between VoIP providers and ISPs. Source: http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/single.php?id=8143
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