Tuesday, March 1, 2016



Complete DHS Report for March 1, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

•Northbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Commerce, California, were shut down for at least 24hours February 27 due to a multi-vehicle accident that left 3 people dead and 4 others injured. – KCBS 2 Los Angeles

7. February 27, KCBS 2 Los Angeles – (California) I-5 closed in Commerce after crash leaves 3 dead. Northbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Commerce, California, were shut down for at least 24 hours while southbound lanes were closed for several hours February 27 due to a multi-vehicle accident caused by motorists racing on the freeway that left 3 people dead and 4 others injured. Source: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/02/27/5-freeway-closed-in-commerce-after-crash-leaves-3-dead-5-injured/

•International Packing LLC, Universal Cheese & Drying Inc., and an executive pleaded guilty February 26 to falsely marketing grated Swiss and mozzarella cheese as 100 percent parmesan and romano. – Associated Press

10. February 26, Associated Press – (Pennsylvania) Exec, 2 companies plead guilty in mislabeled cheese case. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced February 26 that an executive and 2 Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania-based businesses, International Packing LLC and Universal Cheese & Drying Inc., pleaded guilty after marketing grated Swiss and mozzarella cheese made by Castle Cheese Inc. as 100 percent parmesan and romano, following an investigation that found the products contained more than the 4 percent of cellulose allowed by the FDA. Under a deal with Federal prosecutors, the companies must each forfeit $500,000. Source: http://www.theolympian.com/news/business/article62618967.html

•Officials deemed a portion of Padden Creek in Washington a temporary health hazard February 26 after approximately 200,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the creek. –KOMO 4 Bellevue

11. February 26, KOMO 4 Bellevue – (Washington) Estimated 200,000 gallons of raw sewage spills into Bellingham creek. Officials deemed a portion of Padden from 17th Street to the Padden Lagoon in Bellingham a temporary health hazard February 26 after approximately 200,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the creek after a contractor inadvertently placed a sewer bypass pumping system into a storm water manhole. Source: http://komonews.com/news/local/estimated-200000-gallons-of-raw-sewage-spills-into-bellingham-creek

•The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced February 26 that approximately390,000 additional taxpayers had their information stolen after cyber-thieves hacked intoits Get Transcripts system in May 2015 and stole information on about 113,000 taxpayers.–Fox News; Associated Press

12. February 27, Fox News; Associated Press – (National) IRS: Cyber hackers got info on roughly 700K taxpayers, double earlier estimates. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced February 26 that approximately 390,000 additional taxpayers had their personal and financial information stolen after the agency first reported that cyber-thieves hacked into its Get Transcripts system in May 2015 and stole information on about 113,000 taxpayers. The IRS stated that it continues to investigate the incident and is working to mitigate the breach. Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/27/irs-cyber-hackers-got-info-on-roughly-7k-taxpayers-double-earlier-estimate.html
  
Financial Services Sector

4. February 26, Oxford Eagle – (Mississippi) Former bank VP pleads guilty to fraud. The former vice president (VP) of Mechanics Bank in Water Valley, Mississippi, pleaded guilty February 25 to Federal charges after he embezzled over $1.3 million in an elaborate scheme to obtain bank money, funds, credits, assets, securities, and other property, owned and controlled by Mechanics Bank. The former VP issued loans and lines of credits in the names of unsuspecting bank customers, used the money for personal expenses, and made payments on other fraudulent loans. Source: http://www.oxfordeagle.com/2016/02/26/former-bank-vp-pleads-guilty-to-fraud/

Information Technology Sector

14. February 29, ZDNet – (International) Snapchat falls foul of CEO impersonation, hands over employee pay data. The video messaging application, Snapchat reported that many of its current and former employees’ payroll information was compromised after a cyber-attacker impersonated the firm’s chief executive officer (CEO) via a phishing campaign and collected employee payroll information from staff at the firm. Snapchat stated that the incident was contained and reported the scheme to the FBI. Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/snapchat-falls-foul-of-ceo-impersonation-hands-over-employee-pay-data/

15. February 28, Softpedia – (International) One in ten top internet sites may be vulnerable to CSRF and XSS attacks. A CloudFlare engineer discovered that about 10 percent of Alexa Top 1 Million Web sites allowed resources to be shared outside of their domain due to improperly configured Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) settings, enabling hackers to steal users’ private session details and log into users’ accounts to carry out fraudulent operations via cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and cross-site sLcripting (CSS) attacks. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/one-in-ten-top-internet-sites-may-be-vulnerable-to-csrf-and-xss-attacks-501106.shtml

16. February 27, Softpedia – (International) The most common vulnerabilities in open source Web applications are XSS and SQLi. The security firm, Netsparker released a report detailing that 396 Web applications were plagued with 269 security vulnerabilities after a study revealed that 180 vulnerabilities were cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws, 55 vulnerabilities were Structured Query Language (SQL) injection (SQLi) flaws, and 16 vulnerabilities were Remote and Local file Inclusion flaws, among other vulnerabilities. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/the-most-common-vulnerabilities-in-open-source-web-applications-are-xss-and-sqli-501078.shtml

17. February 26, Agence France-Presse – (National) Pentagon boosts spending to fight cyber attacks. The U.S. Secretary of Defense reported February 25 that the Pentagon will spend a total of $6.7 billion in 2017 in an effort to deter advanced cyber adversaries, invest in cyber warfare capabilities, and fund cyber strategy. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/pentagon-boosts-spending-fight-cyber-attacks

18. February 26, SecurityWeek – (International) Google helps news sites thwart DDoS attacks. Google announced the public release of its Project Shield initiative which aims to protect news Web sites from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and aims to keep smaller journalism Web sites safe from cyber-attacks. The initiative now allows small news sites to serve their content through Google’s infrastructure without having to move their hosting location. Source: http://www.securityweek.com/google-helps-news-sites-thwart-ddos-attacks

19. February 26, Softpedia – (International) 90 percent of all SSL VPNs use insecure or outdated encryption. Researchers from High-Tech Bridge discovered that many Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) servers were using insecure or outdated encryption after an analysis of 10,436 servers revealed that about 76 percent of all SSL VPN servers used untrusted SSL certificates, allowing attacks to mimic and launch man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks on unsuspecting users. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/90-percent-of-all-ssl-vpn-use-insecure-or-outdated-encryption-501038.shtml

Communications Sector

Nothing to report