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"Security Industry Group Changes With Times"
Washington Post (09/19/05) P. D2 ; Chediak, Mark Alexandria, Va.-based ASIS International is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the organization drew 19,000 participants to its annual convention in Orlando last week. Various seminars were held at the convention, including "Corporate Check Fraud 101," "Writing Your Crisis Management Plan," and "Mailroom Security in the 21st Century." The organization has an annual budget of $25 million and more than 33,000 members, including members in Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and Africa. The organization publishes a monthly magazine, Security Management, and offers classes and certification in security management, physical security systems, and investigations. Ralph W. Schreiner, a longtime security manager and charter member of ASIS International, says that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks elevated the security profession, noting that "everybody had to increase their security and security awareness." And the growth of the Internet and corporate computer networks has spawned new security issues. Corporate security is now a multibillion-dollar industry, with American companies increasing their average spending on security from $844,982 in fiscal 2001 to $1.03 million in fiscal 2004. ASIS International Executive Director Michael J. Stack says that the security industry must be prepared for the numerous threats that still exist. "There are so many threats out there, it's hard to count them all," Stack says.
(go to web site) "City Urged Not to Be Complacent Over Terror Risks"
Financial Times (09/21/05) P. 2 ; Jopson, Barney; Larsen, Peter Thal The U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA), the U.K. Treasury, and Bank of England are conducting a comprehensive study of about 60 of the city's top financial institutions to determine how prepared they are to deal with the effects of a major terrorist attack or natural disaster. The institutions that have been asked to participate in the study include companies involved in clearing payments and settlement, large banks, and exchanges. The survey is based on a hypothetical "major operational disruption" scenario in which a large area of the city is affected and companies' ability to operate is hindered for more than two days. The study seeks to ascertain whether the financial services sector will be able to conduct key operations like settling trades, completing payments, managing cashflow and liquidity, and re-opening markets for trading. London's financial services sector should be wary of being "lulled into complacency" about the risks posed by a terrorist attack, said FSA Chairman Sir Callum McCarthy. He noted that the London bombings in July were not aimed at the financial services sector, nor did they have a major impact on the sector; however, he warned that any future attacks could test the sector's resiliency. The results of the study will be released later in the year.
(go to web site) "Nigerian Militants Storm Oil Platform After Arrest"
Reuters AlertNet (09/22/05) An oil platform in Nigeria operated by Chevron has been commandeered by a group of more than 100 armed militants who are threatening to commandeer more oil facilities across the Niger Delta and blow them up. Chevron was forced to shut down only 8,400 barrels per day at the Idama oil platform, which was hijacked when a group of eight boats each carrying 15 armed militants overwhelmed government security forces as the platform. The militants apparently hijacked the platform in response to the government's arrest of a militia leader. Several oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell and Agip, have withdrawn employees from the Niger Delta in response to the situation.
(go to web site) "An Extra Measure of Security"
Hartford Courant (CT) (09/23/05) ; Clendenning, Alan Business is booming for Brazil's armored vehicle industry due to a surge in violent crime and kidnappings that have targeted Brazil's upper class over the past decade. Brazil's vehicle armoring industry has overtaken Mexico and Colombia as the biggest in the world, and now the industry is looking to grow even bigger by taking aim at the lucrative market for armored vehicles in Iraq. The Brazilian companies refit cars and SUVs with steel plating, bulletproof windows, and other defenses, and also equip the vehicles with more proactive defensive measures, such as the capability to shoot tear gas or discharge oil slicks during high-speed chases. Clients for the refitted vehicles include multinational corporations, security firms, and foreign governments, including an unnamed Middle Eastern country that ordered 26 heavily armored trucks for its police force. The long-term market for armored vehicles is probably strongest in Latin America, according to security experts, due to high crime and the emergence of gangs. Statistics from the Brazilian Armoring Association show that in 1995 there were 388 sales of vehicle armoring, compared with 4,681 in 2001 and 3,045 in 2004.
(go to web site) "Dutch Court Fight Lays Bare Reality of Kidnap Industry"
Wall Street Journal (09/22/05) P. A1 ; Higgins, Andrew; Cullison, Alan The ordeal of Arjan Erkel, a Dutch worker with Doctors Without Borders, exposes a number of serious problems caused by the increasingly prevalent kidnapping industry. While kidnapping for profit is traditionally thought of as a Latin American problem, the increasing willingness of European governments and American private entities to pay ransom for abducted citizens has made it a more profitable venture in many countries. Kidnap and ransom insurance firms note that while many firms do pay the ransoms demanded, these firms will not acknowledge their involvement in the transaction. As a result, more citizens of developed nations are being kidnapped, and it is difficult to determine the exact risk, as many kidnappings go unreported.
(go to web site) "How to Build Your Own Security Operations Center"
Secure Enterprise (08/05) Vol. 2, No. 8, P. 28 ; Milne, Jay A dedicated security operations center (SOC) and staff are necessary weapons in the battle to defend an organization's data. A recent Secure Enterprise survey of organizations with fewer than 5,000 employees determined that, of those organizations with plans to build an SOC, 53 percent plan to build the SOC in the network operations center, while 25 percent planned to put the SOC in a separate building and 22 percent planned to build it in a separate room. SOC facilities must be physically and electronically secure, and the organization's data center is normally a good place to build an SOC due to existing infrastructure and physical security features. Only select employees should be given access to the SOC, and access approval should be granted by the SOC manager or leader. Business partners, network engineers, and application developers should not need to physically access the SOC. The greatest threat to an SOC is malicious users who attempt to gain access via the network; therefore, security controls could include very restrictive firewall policies or placing a highly restrictive IDS or IPS between the SOC and other parts of the company network. Wireless access to the SOC should also be restricted to select employees and systems. Incident-response guidelines that govern how security events are collected and managed in the SOC should be developed. Companies can develop an incident-response process by looking to examples from SANS, Carnegie Mellon University, the IETF, NIST, and others.
(go to web site) "Nothing Succeeds Like Succession Planning"
Security Management (09/05) Vol. 49, No. 9, P. 94 ; Blair, Billie G. One key function of an organization's senior leadership team is to identify who will fill vacant leadership positions, an approach known as succession planning. The first step of this process is defining the roles that will be part of the succession planning program. To that end, executives should outline job descriptions for themselves and their leadership team, making sure that the job descriptions are forward-looking, account for the organization's overall strategic plan, and define specific skills needed for each position. The next step is to identify leadership qualities that the organization is looking for so that employees within the organization can be selected accordingly. The senior leadership team should then determine how many of these employees with leadership qualities are worth mentoring. This determination must be made with the help of psychological tests and interviews. After this, a mentoring process by experienced personnel should take place, and the process should include milestones, benchmarks, and educational components. The amount of training needed for candidates will vary, but the training can include college courses, workshops, and conferences. The decision to promote a member of the management trainee team should be based on an objective assessment of the trainee's training and education results. Lastly, when a new manager is promoted, the promotion should take the form of an internship period lasting six months to a year before the manager fully assumes the new responsibilities, and even then the new manager should be subjected to an ongoing assessment process.
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"Miles of Traffic as Texans Heed Order to Leave"
New York Times (09/23/05) P. A1 ; Blumenthal, Ralph The metropolitan Houston area's evacuation plan for Hurricane Rita has been paralyzed by a serious and unanticipated problem: The evacuation routes out of the city are jammed with an overwhelming amount of traffic, including broken-down and out-of-gas vehicles, potentially preventing millions of people from getting out of harm's way before Rita strikes. State Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) says that the monster traffic jam raises serious questions about whether the city can handle a terrorist attack. On Thursday, there were as many as 2.5 million people attempting to head north out of the city, causing traffic jams 100 miles long, with traffic inching along or at a standstill. Many vehicles ran out of gas, and others broke down, leaving people stranded along the road and prompting Houston Mayor Bill White to ask the military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to quickly provide fuel for the stranded vehicles. "Being on the highway is a deathtrap," White declared, admitting that the region's emergency evacuation plans did not anticipate the enormous amount of traffic, and he said he would send buses and vans to help evacuate stranded motorists and provide water. Rep. Coleman said, "The question is how many people will be gravely ill and die sitting on the side of the freeway," adding that "even if you tried to leave now, you would not move fast enough to get out of harm's way in advance of the storm." Meanwhile, more than 150 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport security screeners failed to show up for work at the two major airports in the Houston region, apparently because they too were evacuating the city. The TSA had to scramble for replacement screeners, further delaying airport security lines.
(go to web site) "Feds: We're Ready This Time"
CBS News (09/21/05) Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he expects that federal authorities will be ready to respond to Hurricane Rita when the massive storm makes landfall in the Gulf Coast. "What we're in the process of doing now is working very closely with the state of Texas and local authorities, pre-positioning assets, food, supplies, helicopters, medical teams, getting them ready to go when the storm hits," Chertoff said. The federal government has been busy preparing for another storm ever since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Chertoff said. Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that he has been preparing his state for Hurricane Rita by communicating with both Chertoff and President Bush and has had many conversations with state homeland security and state emergency management officials. Perry explained that Texas officials have held practice exercises with the federal government in the past, and the state has a hurricane response plan that is being put into place. Perry acknowledged that the effects of Hurricane Rita are likely to be catastrophic, but he said that Texas is as prepared as it possibly can be. "Texas is probably prepared as any state in the nation, partially because we have had to deal with disasters of substantial size over the course of the years," he said, noting that the state has held more than 150 emergency drills since the Sept. 11 attacks. Chertoff said that federal and state officials are collaborating to ensure that evacuation plans along the Texas coast go smoothly.
(go to web site) "Protection Plan for US Transit to Be Shared"
Boston Globe (09/22/05) ; Miller, Leslie The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it has a secret plan to provide security for U.S. transit systems and that the classified version of the plan will be shared with those who operate or own transit systems. An unclassified version of the security plan also will be made available.
(go to web site) "Footage Shows London Bomb Suspects on Reconnaissance Trip"
Jerusalem Post (09/20/05) U.K. authorities on Tuesday released surveillance camera footage showing three of the alleged July 7 London bombers apparently conducting a test run less than two weeks prior to their attack. The video footage, taken from cameras on June 28, shows the three suspects entering a train station, arriving in London, and entering London's subway system. The route taken by the suspects on June 28 was the same route they took on July 7, and the suspects spent about three hours in London during the dry run. Authorities believe that the men had help in planning the attacks, but they have not yet detained any potential co-conspirators. Authorities are continuing to examine footage from other surveillance cameras in the hopes of determining what the suspects did on June 28 and who they might have met. Authorities decided to check surveillance footage from June 28 after they discovered train tickets and receipts indicating that the suspects had traveled to London that day. The U.K.'s head of anti-terrorism, Peter Clarke, said the surveillance trip indicates that the suspects planned the attacks carefully: "This is quite typical of terrorists' methods: to reconnoiter the layout, the timings, to check security." Meanwhile, authorities officially confirmed that the July 7 bombs had a peroxide base, which is easy to obtain and use and therefore quite popular with terrorists.
(go to web site) "Likelihood of Attack High, Says Scotland Yard"
Financial Times (09/21/05) ; Burns, Jimmy Two months have passed since the London bombings, but there is still a high risk of a terrorist attack in London and the rest of Great Britain, according to Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism unit. Clarke on Tuesday provided the first official update on the investigation into the London bombings in over a month. Clarke said that police have been constantly changing their anti-terrorism tactics and strategies in order to prevent more terrorist attacks. These tactics are said to include the deployment of armed law enforcement units, a police presence on London Underground trains, and covert operations. Authorities do not have any specific information suggesting that an attack is imminent. Clarke said that the July 7 London bombings were likely planned out over a period of months. Sources say that the thousands of police officers who were brought in to London from other jurisdictions in the aftermath of the July bombings have been allowed to go back to their previous duties, but Clarke explained that the reassignment does not mean that authorities are weakening their anti-terrorism efforts.
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"Now, Every Keystroke Can Betray You"
Los Angeles Times (09/18/05) P. A1 ; Menn, Joseph Cybercriminals have begun to prey on online banking customers, using sophisticated software to record individual keystrokes and obtain passwords and PIN numbers. From June to July, the number of reported phishing attacks dropped, while the number of programs designed to steal passwords, known as crimeware, more than doubled. Though many consumers report that fears of cybercrime will lead them to modify their shopping habits, many banks encourage the use of online transactions because they entail far less cost than a visit to a branch. Crimeware can be installed inadvertently by opening an attachment or an advertising link, after which it can record all keystrokes or only those made at selected financial sites; the information is then relayed back to the hackers, who thus far have largely been using it to access accounts one at a time, though efforts at automating the process have recently emerged. One particularly malicious program, known as Grams, cuts out the step of relaying the information to the hacker and automatically cleans out the account once the information is recorded. In response, the FDIC has implored banks to investigate new security measures, though they respond with the fear that too much security could become a nuisance and cost them customers. As security measures become more sophisticated, criminals are keeping the pace, as efforts to select passwords with a mouse instead of using keystrokes have been met with programs that can take a picture of a computer screen to intercept the mouse clicks; some banks have even taken to calling customers when irregular activity is observed on their accounts. Liability remains a pressing issue, as the FDIC and many banks disagree on the extent to which consumers are covered in the event that their data are compromised.
(go to web site) "Vigilance, Resilience Key to Cyber Security, Says New York State Official"
Government Technology (09/20/05) ; Hanson, Wayne The New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination recently issued 10,000 employees an alert warning about phishing attacks. One month later, those same employees received an email that appeared to be from the state government warning about compromised security and requesting recipients enter their passwords and PINs for a risk assessment. While the state government was responsible for the email, it came from outside the system, and was meant as an exercise to gauge the employees' level of awareness about phishing attacks. Roughly 17 percent fell prey. After renewed education, a similar exercise a month later ensnared 7 percent. The survey collected aggregate data, but none regarding specific individuals who fell victim. Instead, they were sent an explanatory email and an educational video warning about phishing, as well as a survey about what they learned. The office's director, William Pelgrin, notes that "100 percent security will never be attainable," though to that end, he stresses persistent vigilance and ongoing education. Pelgrin hopes other states will adopt New York's security focus, typified by the designation of October as Cyber Security Awareness Month. New York also hosts a Web cast every other month concerning cyber security, which began as a state initiative but now attracts international participation. Pelgrin also encourages parents to work with their children and educate them about cyber ethics to instill the principals of responsible computing at a cultural level. Citing the imperative of treating cyber security as a top priority, rather than a back-end consideration, Pelgrin warns, "If security doesn't get down to the desktop level, we'll all lose."
(go to web site) "The Authentication Battle"
CSO Magazine (09/05) ; Garfinkel, Simson The inherent limitations of passwords as a security tool have been proven again and again by instances of shoulder surfing, password sharing, and keylogging. Though network environments that demand security should not abandon passwords altogether, they are well advised to consider them as more of a second line of defense, serving as an auxiliary to either token-based authentication or biometrics. Neither of those systems are perfect, either, and biometrics especially is such a new and developing field that any CSO seeking to implement it must evaluate the system carefully and determine if it suits the company or agency's needs. In an environment where users need to connect to a system remotely, tokens that plug into a USB port or display an ever-changing numeric password work admirably. They can be used with a great variety of systems, require minimal training, and it is usually noticed quickly if they are lost or stolen. The costs for tokens are based on the number of users, rather than the number of locations where they may need access. The most popular token system is SecurID, which displays an eight-digit number on an LCD screen that changes every minute, which the computer processes for verification. For users requiring access to multiple secure sites, having to carry around many tokens could become burdensome. Biometric systems are best suited for environments where employees must be present physically and there is an incentive to cheat, such as a timeclock. They are also conducive to environments with high turnover, such as retail. Biometrics have many problems, though, such as the chances for false positives and false negatives, depending on the tolerance for variation in place in the system. Though neither system is foolproof, a careful study of the available products can produce a good match for an organization and dramatically improve security.
(go to web site) Abstracts Copyright © 2005 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD |
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