Security Management Weekly - August 14, 2009

Learn more! ->     August 14, 2009     Corporate Security "Rio Tinto Four Obtain Chinese Legal Representation" "Secret Cargo Theory as Hunt for Missing Vessel Arctic Sea Goes On" Director of Russian Maritime Bulletin Says Arctic Star Likely Attacked Because of 'Expensive, Dangerous' Secret Cargo "U.S. Firms Probed in Mexico Oil Scam" "Man Arrested Over $65M Jewelry Heist" London "Piracy Verdicts May Violate U.S. Constitution" Homeland Security "At Canada Border, Business Takes a Hit" New Law Requiring Travelers to Show ID When Crossing Border Hurting Business, Merchants Say "Future of Standish Prison Still Uncertain" Feds Decline to Say Whether Guantanamo Detainees Will be Moved to Michigan Facility "Blow for Indonesia as Top Militant Eludes Police" "White House: Gitmo Closing on Schedule" "Dormitory Burns Down in Chino Prison Riot" Cyber Security "U.S. Web-Tracking Plan Stirs Privacy Fears" "Social Networks' Troubles Were Collateral Damage" Security Researchers Say Recent DDOS Attacks Were Targeted at Pro-Georgian Blogger "How to Build Anonymity Into the Internet" Researchers Discuss Ways to Protect Web Surfers' Privacy at Recent Symposium "New Gov't Cyber Guidelines Lacking, Group Says" Cyber Secure Institute Says Guidelines Will Not Adequately Protect Federal Computer Networks "Hackers Target House.gov Sites"             Rio Tinto Four Obtain Chinese Legal Representation Wall Street Journal (08/14/09) Areddy, James T. There are growing indications that the case against the four Rio Tinto employees who have been accused by the Chinese government of bribery and stealing commercial secrets will move ahead as a run-of-the-mill criminal case rather than an espionage investigation. In the latest sign that the case will proceed as a criminal case, the Rio Tinto employees--who were detained on July 5 for allegedly spying on the Chinese steal industry and stealing state secrets--have hired lawyers to defend them during their trial. In addition, China's State Security Bureau has handed the case over to Shanghai's police department. The employees, who have denied the charges against them, are expected to appear in court for the first time within about three months. All four of the defendants are expected to be tried in a single case. Web Link | Return to Headlines Secret Cargo Theory as Hunt for Missing Vessel Arctic Sea Goes On Guardian Unlimited (UK) (08/13/09) Topping, Alexandra; Parfitt, Tom In an interview Thursday with the Russia Today news channel, Mikhail Voitenko, the editor of Russia's Sovfracht maritime bulletin, said the freighter that has been missing since late July may have been attacked because it was carrying a secret cargo. According to Voitenko, it is possible that the ship was carrying a secret cargo because it stayed in a shipyard for two weeks in the Russian seaport of Kaliningrad before it was loaded with its cargo of timber in Finland. Voitenko added that he thinks that the secret cargo is much more valuable and dangerous than drugs or another type of "illegal criminal cargo." However, Nikolay Karpenkov, the director of company that operated the freighter, said any suggestion that the ship was carrying a secret cargo was "rubbish." He noted that the ship was inspected by customs officers while in Kaliningrad and again after the timber was loaded in Finland, and nothing unusual was found either time. Web Link | Return to Headlines U.S. Firms Probed in Mexico Oil Scam Wall Street Journal (08/12/09) P. A1; Daker, Susan; Campoy, Ana; Millman, Joel John Morton, the assistant secretary of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced Aug. 11 that his agency is investigating whether several U.S. oil refineries participated in a scheme to siphon oil products from Mexico's state-run oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, and smuggle them into the U.S. Investigators have not disclosed the quantity of the oil products that were smuggled or how much those products were worth, though they did say that the scheme involved U.S. companies that were aware that the oil was stolen. The investigation, which is part of a broader probe by U.S. and Mexican officials into a group of Mexican oil smugglers that are supported by the country's Gulf drug cartel, has already resulted in the prosecution of former Trammo Petroleum President Donald Schroeder. Prosecutors say Schroeder was the middleman in a plan to smuggle $2 million worth of stolen petroleum condensate from Mexico into Texas and sell it throughout the U.S. Trammo has since repaid the value of the petroleum condensate to the Mexican government. Meanwhile, Mexican security officials have arrested a group that made $46 million smuggling oil into the U.S. over a two-year period. Experts say that the cases should be taken as a warning that Mexico could experience uncontrollable oil smuggling, much in the same way Nigeria has. Web Link | Return to Headlines Man Arrested Over $65M Jewelry Heist CNN International (08/12/09) Police in London announced Wednesday that they had arrested a 50-year-old man in connection with the recent robbery of a jewelry store in the city, in which roughly $65 million in merchandise was stolen. During the Aug. 6 robbery, two men in their 30s walked into Graff Jewelers in downtown London and threatened employees with handguns. The robbers left the store with a total of 43 items, including rings, bracelets, necklaces, and watches. The robbers also brought a female employee outside with them, though they let her go before escaping in a blue BMW. Police say the robbers switched cars two more times before finally getting away. Police have issued surveillance camera photos of the men in the hopes that someone will turn them in. Robberies such as the one at Graff Jewelers are growing increasingly common in London. Many of these robberies are "smash and grab robberies, in which groups of men or teenagers break store windows and steal anything they can get their hands on before escaping. These robberies typically take place during the day when jewelry stores turn their security systems off. Web Link | Return to Headlines Piracy Verdicts May Violate U.S. Constitution Reuters (08/07/09) Sheffner, Ben Critics of the record industry say the large fines that have recently been levied against two consumers who illegally downloaded music on peer-to-peer applications like Kazaa violate the Constitution's guarantee of due process of the law and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on excessive fines. Critics also say the Constitution should limit awards of copyright statutory damages that may be punitive in nature. Although no court has ruled that the Constitution does indeed limit copyright statutory damages, record labels and publishers should be concerned that verdicts in the cases of Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum--who were recently ordered to pay record labels $1.9 million and $675,000, respectively, in damages for illegally downloading music through a P2P application--could result in such a ruling, according to Ben Sheffner, a copyright attorney and the author of this article. Sheffner noted that if a court does rule that the Constitution limits copyright statutory damages, copyright owners will have to prove actual damages, which are difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Sheffner also noted that such a ruling would reduce the effectiveness of statutory damages as a tool to force alleged copyright infringers to accept settlements and persuade them not to infringe on copyrights again. However, Sheffner noted that if the constitutionality of copyright statutory damages should ever come before the U.S. Supreme Court, copyright owners could have a friend in Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who as a lower-court judge increased an award of statutory damages because she believed such damages must be high enough to deter future copyright infringements and "should not be calibrated to favor a defendant by merely awarding minimum estimated losses to a plaintiff." Web Link | Return to Headlines At Canada Border, Business Takes a Hit Wall Street Journal (08/14/09) Herring, Chris A number of businesses along the Canadian border have reported that a new law, which requires users to show a passport or other internationally-recognized documentation when crossing into America, has caused a decrease in spending from tourists. In June, the first month after the policy was implemented, the 11 busiest U.S.-Canada bridges drew approximately 2.6 million vehicles. That represents a 23 percent drop from the same time in 2008, according to the Public Border Operators Association. The new policy represents a shift towards equal security on both U.S. borders. Individuals returning from Mexico have long had to show a passport or a visa to enter the country. However, the new policy also now requires additional documentation for U.S. citizens returning from Mexico. These changes were made in response to the 9/11 report, that called for tighter U.S. border security. Other sections of the policy were put in place in January 2009, when the U.S. started requiring additional documentation for air travelers into the country. Many officials have dismissed concerns of businesses along the border, saying it is the recession that is primarily to blame for the decrease in tourism. Web Link | Return to Headlines Future of Standish Prison Still Uncertain Detroit Free Press (MI) (08/14/09) Gray, Kathleen About 18 federal officials from the Bureau of Prisons and the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice toured the Standish Maximum Security Correctional Facility in Standish, Mich., on Thursday as part of an effort to see if the soon-to-be-closed prison could be used to hold terrorist suspects from Guantanamo Bay. However, federal officials made no comment about their plans after the three-hour tour concluded. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the government is still in the preliminary stages of determining where the inmates from Guantanamo Bay will be housed after that facility closes next January. Federal officials are also considering moving the detainees to Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. Several lawmakers are opposed to efforts to bring terrorism detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. mainland. Among them is Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.). Hoekstra has called on the Justice and Defense departments to allow Michigan and Standish officials to visit Guantanamo Bay and to declassify files on the terrorist suspects so people in his state can determine exactly what they are dealing with if the prisoners are moved to Standish. Web Link | Return to Headlines Blow for Indonesia as Top Militant Eludes Police Reuters (08/12/09) Rondonuwu, Olivia Indonesian police have announced that the suspect shot dead in recent police raids was not Islamic militant, Noordin Mohammad Top, and that he is still at large. The man killed in the raid was identified as Ibrohim, who officials believe may have been involved in the recent bombing of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta. Top is believe to have planned that bombing, along with the bombing of the JW Marriott, which resulted in the death of nine people and injured 53 others. Police sources indicate that Top probably fled the raided safe house several hours before the standoff that resulted in Ibrohim's death began. National security advisors believe that Top is still in Indonesia and they expect him to attempt further attacks. Rohand Gunarta, a terrorism expert in Singapore, said that the longer Top eluded capture, the more his status would increase with his fellow militants, making him all the more dangerous. The threat of attacks in the country therefore remains high, especially in light of several upcoming events, including a possible visit by U.S. President Obama. Web Link | Return to Headlines White House: Gitmo Closing on Schedule Washington Times (08/10/09) Lengell, Sean White House National Security Advisor, James L. Jones, has said that the administration is on track to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for terrorism suspects by the scheduled Jan.1 deadline. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) contradicted Jones, saying that he believes any attempt to shut down the facility will be aggressively opposed by both Democrats and Republicans. The Senator also said that he believes the closing of the prison to be a waste of taxpayer money. However, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said that he agreed with Mr. Jones that the Guantanamo facility will be closed on schedule and that attempts by some Republicans to portray opposition to the facility as widespread was misleading. In support of his argument, Sen. Levin cited a number of current and former leaders; including President George W. Bush, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and head of U.S. Central Command Gen. David H. Petraeus; as agreeing that it is not feasible to keep the facility open. Levin also said that he would support locating some terrorists to top-level security prisons in Michigan, as long as the move was approved by Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, and other local authorities. "We should not be cowed by the terrorists so that we don't even keep them in maximum-security prisons in the United States," Levin said. "We can't allow the terrorists to be intimidating us from trying them and keeping them in our jails." Web Link | Return to Headlines Dormitory Burns Down in Chino Prison Riot Los Angeles Times (08/10/09) Mozingo, Joe; Roosevelt, Margot A riot broke out Saturday night at a medium-security unit of the California Institution for Men in Chino after a fight between Hispanic and black prisoners. During the riot, which lasted nearly four hours, prisoners in the 1,300-man dormitory-style barracks building ripped pieces of metal from lockers, destroyed beds, and broke off pipes and used them as weapons. A fire later broke out and burned down one of the unit's dormitory buildings. Most of the barracks have sustained so much damage that they are now uninhabitable. Inmates who had been living in the barracks where the riots took place were transferred to other units at the prison. No guards were injured during the riot, though more than 250 prisoners sustained injuries such as small cuts, major stab wounds, and head trauma. Fifty-five of the inmates sustained injuries that were so serious that they had to be taken to the hospital. In the aftermath of the riot, all prisons in Southern California have been put on lockdown and visitation at the facilities has been suspended indefinitely. Web Link | Return to Headlines U.S. Web-Tracking Plan Stirs Privacy Fears Washington Post (08/11/09) P. A2; Hsu, Spencer S.; Kang, Cecilia The White House is proposing to soften a long-existing prohibition on tracking how users peruse U.S. government Web sites with cookies and other methods, inciting suspicion among privacy advocates. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed replacing a ban on using cookies and other technologies on government sites and replacing it with new standards. Supporters of the proposal say social networking and other services have transformed the way users share knowledge, and White House officials say those services can be used to enhance transparency and public participation in the government. Some privacy advocates say the change represents a fundamental and inexplicable shift in federal policy. The American Civil Liberties Union's Michael Macleod-Ball says the proposal could "allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government Web site." Even those in favor of revising the policy question whether the Obama administration is pursuing these changes at the behest of private companies, as the sector's clout in Washington has expanded significantly. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center cite the language of a February contract with Google, in which a government agency specifically exempted the company so that it could access Google's YouTube site. Electronic Frontier Foundation legal advocate Cindy Cohn calls the agreement troubling. "It appears that these companies are forcing the government to lower the privacy protections that the government had promised the American people," Cohn says. "The government should be requiring companies to raise the level of privacy protection if they want government contracts." Web Link | Return to Headlines Social Networks' Troubles Were Collateral Damage USA Today (08/10/09) P. B5; Acohido, Byron The denial-of-service attacks that temporarily shut down Twitter and affected millions of Facebook and LiveJournal users for a few hours earlier this month were meant as specific attacks against one blogger criticizing the Russian invasion of Georgia, security researchers speculate. But the subsequent fallout underscored the precariousness of social networks that hoard large troves of user information in networks built for efficiency. Social networking sites leave users more vulnerable to attacks than traditional networks, says TechGuard CEO Suzanne Magee. "We share our vulnerabilities because we are sharing resources with others," she says. As of Aug. 7, Twitter was fully operable for more than 30 million patrons, but a few hitches remained. The previous day, an attacker unleashed a series of attacks designed to take out the Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal accounts of a blogger who goes by the name Cyxymu. Usually, such denial-of-service attacks involve inundating a certain Web site with tens of millions of queries from thousands of compromised computers called bots. In this case the attacker dispatched a relatively small number of bots to take down the servers facilitating service to the Georgian blogger—and to millions of other social networkers. SonicWall's Nick Bilogorskiy estimates that the attacker enlisted the help of approximately 100,000 bots to carry out the attack. It was like "throwing a hand grenade to kill a fly," says Cisco security researcher Patrick Peterson. Web Link | Return to Headlines How to Build Anonymity Into the Internet Technology Review (08/10/09) Naone, Erica At the 9th annual Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, security researchers discussed alternatives to existing systems designed to help Internet users maintain their privacy while online. One proposed solution is called anon.next, presented by University of Texas at Arlington iSec research lab co-director Matthew Wright. Anon.next proposes that in the event of a redesign of Internet architecture, proxies that help preserve anonymity could be built in, with Internet service providers (ISPs) determining points in the network where proxies would be effective. Williams College professor Barath Raghavan, along with researchers from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Washington, suggested a protocol that could hide a user's Internet Protocol address within the rest of an ISP's traffic. The researchers say that adding such a system would not damage performance and could work in conjunction with Tor or another privacy-protection service. They also say that ISPs might even be willing to add the protocol as a benefit to attract customers, similar to call blocking services offered by telephone providers. Web Link | Return to Headlines New Gov't Cyber Guidelines Lacking, Group Says IDG News Service (08/07/09) Gross, Grant The Cyber Secure Institute (CSI) says the new cybersecurity guidelines issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will not adequately protect government IT systems. CSI says the guidelines would classify many federal IT systems as low- or moderate-impact targets. These systems—which include systems that contain data related to highly sensitive investigations at federal law enforcement agencies—are only required to have enough security to protect against "the proverbial teenage hacker," CSI says. It noted that this level of security is not enough to protect against the skilled and well funded attackers who are responsible for most cybersecurity threats. However, NIST researcher Ron Ross says CSI's criticisms are based on a misunderstanding of the guidelines. He says the guidelines are only minimum standards, and that federal agencies must still perform risk assessments and change the guidelines so they meet their needs. Ross says that if NIST were to follow the recommendations CSI suggests, every security control contained in the guidelines would be recommended for all federal information systems, which would be excessive for many federal systems, not to mention too expensive. Web Link | Return to Headlines Hackers Target House.gov Sites Washington Post (08/06/09) Krebs, Brian The Web home pages of at least 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives were hacked and defaced earlier this month. Zone-h.com, a site that stores evidence of attacks on Web sites, said that hackers somehow broke into the house.gov Web sites of several lawmakers, including Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), and Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), and replaced sections of their pages with several copies of a message. Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for House chief administrative officer Dan Beard, says the break-ins began Aug. 1 and were the result of the failure of a Web design company that was hired to provide Web hosting for roughly 100 House sites to follow the House's mandatory security standards. Ventura added that no sensitive data or materials were lost or stolen in the breach, and that the defacements were erased several hours after they were discovered. Although the Web design company says the hack was the result of assigning passwords to House member offices that were easily guessed, Gary Warner, the director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says the hack was probably caused by SQL injection, not password guessing. Web Link | Return to Headlines Abstracts Copyright © 2009 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD   ASIS also offers a daily and a non-sponsored, special-content Professional Edition of Security Newsbriefs. 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