Wednesday, November 16, 2016



Complete DHS Report for November 16, 2016

Daily Report                                            

Top Stories

• A man dubbed the “Faceless Bandit” was charged November 14 for allegedly robbing or attempting to rob 4 banks in Los Angeles County and Orange County, California, in October. – Southern California City News Service See item 3 below in the Financial Services Sector

• A November 15 fire at a poultry operation in Nova Township, Ohio, killed over 22,000 chickens and destroyed thousands of eggs after a reported electrical issue caused the barn to ignite. – Associated Press

9. November 15, Associated Press – (Ohio) Fast-moving barn fire kills 22,000 chickens. A November 15 fire at a poultry operation in Nova Township, Ohio, killed over 22,000 chickens and destroyed thousands of eggs after a reported electrical issue caused the barn to ignite. The fire is under investigation as a possible arson.

• The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating after tens of thousands of dead Atlantic menhaden (bunker) fish turned up in the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays November 14. – Associated Press; WABC 7 New York 

10. November 15, Associated Press; WABC 7 New York – (New York) Thousands of dead fish turn up in Shinnecock Canal on Long Island. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating after tens of thousands of dead Atlantic menhaden (bunker) fish turned up in the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays November 14 due to an alleged shortage of oxygen and high fish density in the water. The Suffolk County Health Department collected water samples as a precaution to test for possible pathogens and pesticides. Source: http://abc7ny.com/news/thousands-of-dead-fish-turn-up-in-long-island-canal/1606405/

• U.S. Forest Service officials reported November 14 that more than 5,000 fire crews are working to contain 30 wildfires that have burned through roughly 80,000 acres across 6 southern States. – CNN

20. November 14, CNN – (National) Southern wildfires burn 80,000 acres across six states. U.S. Forest Service officials reported November 14 that more than 5,000 fire crews are working to contain 30 wildfires that have burned through roughly 80,000 acres across 6 southern States. The governors of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky declared a state of emergency due to the fires.
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/14/us/southern-wildfires/

Financial Services Sector

3. November 14, Southern California City News Service – (California) ‘Faceless Bandit’ faceless no more: Accused armed bank robber faces justice. A man dubbed the “Faceless Bandit” was charged November 14 for allegedly robbing or attempting to rob 4 banks in Los Angeles County and Orange County, California, in October.

Information Technology Sector

23. November 15, SecurityWeek – (International) Cryptsetup flaw exposes Linux systems to attacks. Security researchers discovered a vulnerability affecting the disk encryption utility Cryptsetup that could allow attackers with physical access to a targeted Linux system to gain root access to the system, and copy, modify, or destroy data on the hard disk by holding down the “Enter” key for approximately 70 seconds during boot. The flaw occurs when the system partition is encrypted using the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) disk encryption standard, and is due to the incorrect handling of password checks.

24. November 15, SecurityWeek – (International) Kovter trojan fuels spike in new malware variants. Symantec released a report which revealed that the number of new malware variants increased from roughly 50.1 million in September to 96.1 million in October due to the Kovter trojan family. The report also revealed that the RIG exploit kit (EK) accounted for 37.4 percent of the EK activity spotted during October, among other findings.

25. November 14, SecurityWeek – (International) Hackers find code execution flaw in VMware Workstation. VMware released a patch resolving a critical out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability in its Workstation Player and Pro 12.x, and Fusion Pro 8.x products that can be exploited from the guest to execute arbitrary code on the host operating system (OS) running the products if the drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste functions are enabled.

Communications Sector

Nothing to report