Thursday, April 24, 2014


Complete DHS Report for April 24, 2014

Daily Report

 Details

  A Bakersfield, California man pleaded guilty April 21 to conspiring to damage energy facilities by stealing programmable logic controllers and other equipment from oil field facilities of several companies during 2011 and 2012. – KERO 23 Bakersfield

3. April 21, KERO 23 Bakersfield – (California) Bakersfield men enter guilty plea to
damaging oilfield facilities. A Bakersfield man pleaded guilty April 21 to conspiring
to damage energy facilities by stealing programmable logic controllers and other
equipment from oil field facilities of several companies during 2011 and 2012. The
total loss of equipment by the oil companies exceeded $200,000.

  U.S. Chemical Safety Board officials reported April 22 that an April 2013 explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, was preventable and resulted from the owner’s failure to take necessary steps to avert a preventable fire and explosion, and from government regulators’ failure to identify the hazard. – CNN

4. April 22, CNN – (Texas) West, Texas, fertilizer plant blast that killed 15 'preventable,' safety board says. U.S. Chemical Safety Board officials reported April 22 that an April 2013 explosion that killed 15 workers at a West Fertilizer Co. facility in West, Texas, was preventable. The board’s report claimed that the explosion resulted from the owner’s failure to take the necessary steps to avert a preventable fire and explosion, and from government regulators’ failure to identify the hazard. Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/us/west-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-investigation/index.html

  Authorities are investigating after nearly 120 New Hampshire physicians and medical personnel had their Social Security numbers stolen and used to file fake tax returns, with similar issues also reported in other States. – New Hampshire Union Leader

16. April 22, New Hampshire Union Leader – (National) More than 110 NH doctors defrauded through filing of fake tax returns. Authorities are investigating after nearly 120 New Hampshire physicians and medical personnel had their Social Security numbers stolen and used to file fake federal tax returns. The New Hampshire Medical Society stated that similar issues were also reported in other States. Source: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140423/NEWS03/140429663

  Iowa State University notified 29,780 students April 22 after the discovery of a data breach that compromised servers containing Social Security numbers and university ID numbers. – Iowa State University

21. April 22, Iowa State University – (Iowa) Iowa State IT staff discover unauthorized access to servers. Iowa State University notified 29,780 students April 22 after the discovery of a breach affecting 5 department servers on campus. The compromised servers contained Social Security numbers and the university notified an additional 18,949 students whose university ID numbers were also located on the servers. Source: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2014/04/22/serverbreach

Financial Services Sector

7. April 23, Leesburg Today – (Virginia) Man arrested for 'skimming' thousands of credit cards at South Riding restaurant. A New York man was arrested after being confronted by a customer April 8 at the Moca Asian Bistro restaurant in South Riding for allegedly using a skimming device. Police then found a skimming device with data from over 1,000 payment cards stored on it that were stolen between March 11 and April 8. Source: http://www.leesburgtoday.com/news/man-arrested-for-skimming-thousands-of-credit-cards-at-south/article_50b558ae-caf2-11e3-b174-001a4bcf887a.html

Information Technology Sector

25. April 23, The Register – (International) AOL Mail locks down email servers to deal with spam tsunami. AOL confirmed that their AOL Mail email servers were under an intensive spoofing attack beginning April 20 that has sent large volumes of spam emails to users’ inboxes. AOL stated that they changed their DMARC policy in order to prevent unauthorized use, but the change may affect some email-forwarding services and listservs. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/23/aol_mail_locks_down_email_servers_to_deal_with_tsunami_of_spam/

26. April 23, Help Net Security – (International) Amazon Cloud IaaS Service servers riddled with vulnerabilities. Researchers at Bkav found in the course of a customer-prompted investigation that several servers for Amazon’s Cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) Service and HP’s Public Cloud service contain several vulnerabilities due to the servers’ Windows Server installations not being updated for several months. Source: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=16731

27. April 23, Softpedia – (International) SMS trojan FakeInst targets users in 66 countries. Researchers at Kaspersky analyzed the FakeInst trojan for Android and found that attackers have added capabilities since it first appeared in February 2013, allowing it now to target users in 66 countries. The trojan is disguised as an app and can send SMS messages to premium rate numbers as well as intercept text messages. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/SMS-Trojan-FakeInst-Targets-Users-in-66-Countries-438976.shtml

28. April 23, Softpedia – (International) DDoS attacks increasingly used as a smokescreen for data theft. Neustar released its DDoS Attacks and Impacts Report for 2014 which found that distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are increasingly used by attackers as cover for more damaging compromises. Around half of organizations that reported suffering a breach or DDoS attack in 2013 also had malware installed on their systems, with 55 percent of those hit by DDoS attacks losing data or funds, among other findings. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/DDOS-Attacks-Increasingly-Used-as-a-Smokescreen-for-Data-Theft-438873.shtml

29. April 22, The Register – (International) Patch iOS, OS X now: PDFs, JPEGs, URLs, Web pages can pwn your kit. Apple released updates for its OS X and iOS operating systems, closing 19 security issues including a “triple handshake” error in iOS Secure Transport that could allow an attacker to inject data into secure connections. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/22/apple_ios_7_1_1_os_x_security_updates/

Communications Sector

Nothing to report