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Libyan Extraction: How Companies Get Employees Out of Global Hotspots
CNNMoney.com (03/03/11) Mitchell, Dan
Despite the violence in Libya, rescuing the employees of Western companies was easy for companies such as Control Risks Group, a U.K. firm that provides strategic planning and general security services. According to Jim Brooks, the company's president and CEO for the Americas, most clients were told to shelter in place at hotels, offices, or corporate compounds until they could be escorted out of Libya. In some cases, Control Risks provided clients in Libya with "remote advice," such as information about the safest route to the airport. Daniel L. Richards, the CEO of Global Rescue, a company that hires ex-Special Forces and ex-Navy Seal personnel to perform rescue operations, said that getting the employees out of Libya was easier than getting them out of Egypt. He noted that one reason for this was the fact that the number of people that needed be rescued was relatively small, since Western companies have much less exposure in Libya than they do in Egypt. In addition, Westerners in Libya were generally not target by Muammar Qaddafi's regime.
Noted Mass. Lab Reviews Rules After Cyanide Death
Associated Press (03/03/11) Lindsay, Jay
The Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Massachusetts has launched a review of its handling of lab chemicals after an employee stole cyanide from the research center and used it to kill herself. Boston police say they found 72-year-old research technician Olga Tretyakov after her husband reported that she might have tried to kill herself using cyanide. She later died at the hospital. "We are reviewing our procedures and the circumstances surrounding this incident," says Dana Farber spokesman Bill Schaller. Experts say that most research labs are less concerned with safety procedures regarding toxic substances like cyanide than they are about explosive or otherwise volatile chemicals, but that attitude may change in the wake of this and several other suicides associated with lab-obtained poisons.
Piracy Compromising Trade, Says B.C. Shipping Expert
The Chronicle Herald (Canada) (03/02/2011) Lambie, Chris
Stephen Brown, the president of the Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, reports that piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean is jeopardizing efforts to establish trade routes from the local Port of Halifax to India and the Far East via the Suez Canal. His comments come following the launch of a campaign called Save Our Seafarers, which is designed to combat the piracy problem. No ships sailing to or from Canada have yet been attacked, but Brown said that it is only a matter of time if something does not change. Groups participating in the new campaign include the Baltic and International Maritime Council, the International Chamber of Shipping, the International Shipping Federation, Intercargo, Intertanko, and the International Transport Workers' Federation. The campaign is pushing countries to send more naval power to the area to protect trade routes and to establish an international maritime court to punish pirates.
Medical Cannabis in the Workplace
KULR-8 TV (03/02/11) Drescher, Kacey
Montana state Rep. Gary MacLaren introduced legislation on Wednesday that creates exceptions for employers to the protections included in the Medical Marijuana Act. According to MacLaren, the legislation equates the use of medical marijuana with the use of alcohol or other drugs in or out of the workplace. In addition, the bill clarifies employers' rights to subject employees to drug tests. The bill expands the number of employees that are subject to random drug tests, and allows employers to fire employees who test positive for medical marijuana, regardless of what the employee's impairment level or job performance level is. Supporters of the measure have said that it will promote workplace safety and offer businesses protection from legal action, while opponents have said that it will allow employers to discriminate against medical marijuana users and violate their privacy.
US Senator Seeks Tough Anti-Piracy Measures
Agence France-Presse (03/01/11)
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is calling for steps to be taken to fight piracy in the wake of the death of four Americans at the hands of Somali pirates last week. For instance, Kirk is calling for the creation of a "Pirate Exclusion Zone" in which any vessel from Somalia that is not approved by allied forces could be immediately boarded or sunk. The Pirate Exclusion Zone would also allow for a blockade of Somali ports that are overrun with pirates. In addition, Kirk is calling for the creation of a new legal regime to try and detain pirates that are captured at sea. Finally, Kirk said that broad powers are needed to attack or arrest pirates that are more than 12 miles from the Somali coast. Kirk said that it is necessary to address the problem of piracy in order to ensure that oil tankers are able to travel to the U.S. safely.
Ex-General's Convoy Is Attacked
Wall Street Journal (03/04/11) Casey, Nicholas
Two police officers were seriously injured in an apparent attack on a retired Mexican general in the violence-plagued city of Torreon on Wednesday. The assailants who carried out the attack were riding in five dark SUVs when they opened fire on a convoy carrying retired Gen. Carlos Villa, who was appointed as police chief in Torreon in January 2010 to clean up the city's corruption-plagued police force. Villa was in an armored vehicle and was not shot, though two police officers were hit. The assailants then sped away, prompting authorities to launch a search for them. The attack may have been carried out by an organized crime group in revenge for a deadly battle between Torreon police and gunmen on Tuesday. Four suspected cartel hit men were killed in that battle. The attack on Villa is the latest in a series of attacks on former Mexican generals who have been hired to clean up police forces that have been working with crime groups. For instance, drug traffickers are suspected of shooting and killing retired Gen. Manuel Farfan, the police chief of Nuevo Laredo, last month.
Frankfurt Shooting Suspect Had Links to Radical Islamists
Wall Street Journal (03/03/11) Crawford, David; Stevens, Laura; Walker, Marcus
Authorities in Germany are continuing to investigate the possible motivation and background of the suspect in the shooting deaths of two U.S. airmen in Frankfurt on Wednesday. So far the investigation has determined that 21-year-old Arid Uka may have had an "Islamist" motivation when he allegedly boarded a U.S. military bus and opened fire on airmen who were waiting to be transported from the Frankfurt airport to the U.S. airbase in Ramstein, said Chief Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms. Investigators have also said that Uka seems to have ties to radical Islamists in Germany, including Rami Makanesi, who is currently in custody on charges of supporting terrorist activities in Pakistan. Authorities also believe that Uka used Facebook and other Internet sites to make contact with other radical Islamists, such as Sven Lau, the deputy chairman of a German organization that allegedly supports an extremist Islamic ideology. Despite the apparent links to radical Islamists, Uka is believed to have acted alone.
Documents Reveal TSA Research Proposal to Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers
Forbes (03/02/11) Greenberg, Andy
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents that purportedly show that the Department of Homeland Security has been planning to deploy security technologies that could raise privacy concerns at locations besides airports. The documents, which EPIC obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that DHS planned a study of several new anti-terrorism technologies from 2006 to 2008, including a walk through X-ray screening system that could be used to scan individuals as they passed through entrances to special events or other points of interest, such as train stations. The documents also detail a project by researchers at Northeastern University and Siemens to attach backscatter X-ray scanners and video cameras on vans. The scanners would then be used in conjunction with cameras on buildings and utility poles to monitor pedestrians, determine if they are carrying anything dangerous, and track the movements of their eyes. The researchers were also asked by DHS to develop a long-range X-ray scanning system to determine what kind of metal objects someone may have on his body from up to 30 feet away. EPIC attorney Ginger McCall said that the use of the technologies outlined in the documents would violate the Fourth Amendment. The Transportation Security Administration, for its part, has said that it has not tested advanced imaging technology for use in mass transit and that it has no plans to do so.
Pakistan Minorities Minister Killed in Islamabad Weeks After Governor Shot
Bloomberg (03/02/11) Anwar, Haris
Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities' affairs, was assassinated in Islamabad on Wednesday. The assassination was reportedly carried out by four men who ambushed Bhatti as he left his home. Bhatti was unprotected, having told the security guards that had been assigned to him by authorities to stay at his office and not to accompany him to his home. Bhatti's assassination comes eight weeks after Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer was assassinated in Islamabad by his own bodyguard. Both Taseer and Bhatti had received death threats for publicly calling for changes to be made to Pakistan's anti-blasphemy law, which states that anyone convicted of insulting the Prophet Muhammad should be executed. The Pakistani government, however, has refused to alter the law.
Financial Terrorism Suspected in '08 Economic Crash
Washington Times (02/28/11) Gertz, Bill
The Washington Times has obtained a copy of an unclassified report from 2009 that blames the 2008 financial crisis on the actions of terrorists, hostile nations, and others. According to the report, which was written by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman and is entitled "Economic Warfare: Risk and Responses," a three-phased attack was launched against the U.S. economy beginning in 2007. Freeman noted that the first phase of the economic attack was the run-up in oil prices in 2007 and 2008 that took place at the same time as the problems in the nation's housing market. The second phase consisted of a "bear raid" carried out by unidentified parties on Wall Street firms such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, Freeman wrote. He noted that this bear raid resulted in a total collapse in credit availability and almost sparked a worldwide economic depression. The third phase, which Freeman said may be underway now, is the large amount of public debt that the U.S. government has taken on. Freeman noted that this debt could put the U.S. dollar's designation as a global reserve currency at risk. Freeman wrote that there are a number of parties who could have carried out an economic attack on the U.S., including Islamic terrorists, financial enemies in the Middle East, and hostile members of China's military. Government or organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela, or Iran may be to blame as well, Freeman wrote. Freeman cited various pieces of evidence to support his conclusion, including then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's 2008 statement that the Russians had presented a plan to the Chinese to dump their holdings of bonds by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Paul Bracken, a Yale University professor who has studied economic warfare, has said that there is no convincing evidence that outside forces worked together to cause the 2008 financial crisis.
Online Security Breached at MSU
Springfield News-Leader (MO) (03/04/11)
Missouri State University (MSU) has found that it suffered a security breach on Feb. 22 that may have revealed some private information, including Social Security numbers. Upon learning of the breach, which was the result of a worker placing files accidentally on an unsecured server, MSU officials said they immediately removed the exposed files and worked with Google to clear them from its memory. The lists were hit 23 times in the time they were available via Google search, but it does not appear that anyone used them to try to harvest information. Students affected by the breach attended the university's College of Education between 2005 and 2009, and are being informed to monitor their credit information in the wake of the incident. The university has also purchased one-year credit protection insurance for all affected students.
Android Hit by Rogue App Viruses
BBC News (03/03/11)
Over 50 applications available through the official Android Marketplace have been found to be infected with a virus. Research suggests that the hijacked apps may have been downloaded as much as 200,000 times. The pernicious applications were copies of existing applications, such as games, that had been repackaged to contain the virus code. All the apps revealed to contain the code have now been taken out of the Android Marketplace. The virus-ridden apps were discovered by Reddit user Lompolo, who realized that one program was listed under the name of a publisher he was certain had not written it. He found that that app, which let people play guitar on their device, was the same as the original except it had a different name and some virus code buried within it. Lompolo initially located 21 apps bearing the malware but, according to an investigation by mobile security site Android Police, the final tally is projected to involve more than 50. Once a compromised application is installed and run, the virus lying dormant within, known as DroidDream, sends sensitive information, such as a phone's unique ID number, to a remote server. It also checks to see if a device has already been infected and, if not, uses known exploits to circumvent security controls and give its creator access to the handset.
PayPal CISO: DDoS One Big Security Threat Among Many
Network World (03/01/11) Greene, Tim
PayPal chief information security officer Michael Barrett says application layer attacks persist as a significant general threat to businesses. He warns that businesses must plan defenses and verify how well they will endure actual attacks to live networks, since tests in simulated settings do not scale large enough to adequately rattle the defenses. Barrett also says that PCI standards for protecting credit card information must be refined to grant businesses more flexibility without undermining security. He says the standards are too specific in some areas and too vague in others, and argues that the time is ripe for security professionals to help influence required Internet security ordinances. "The industry needs to spend some time educating Congress and its staff on issues to ensure what they do makes computing and the Internet safer and not less safe," he says. Barrett also wants increased enforcement of cybercrime laws and says the industry should support the establishment of a presidential commission to study cybercrime and determine its actual losses, both direct and indirect. Barrett also cites advanced persistent threats (APTs) as a major source of anxiety and the need for legislation to improve Internet security. He notes that it is problematic to detect APTs because they are often hard to find with signature-based tools, while addressing them once they are detected is another big problem.
Can Data Stored on an SSD Be Secured?
Computerworld (02/28/11) Mearian, Lucas
Sanitizing solid-state drives (SSDs) can be nearly impossible, challenging the popular belief that hard disk drives were more difficult to erase, according to a recent University of California, San Diego (UCSD) study. One certain way to protect SSD data is using cryptographic erasure, a technique that involves deleting the encryption keys on a drive so that decrypting the data becomes impossible, says SandForce's Kent Smith. Unless a user can break the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm, there is no way to access the data, Smith says. Cryptographic erasure is performed on the drive either through the Security Erase Unit command, or the soon-to-be released addition to the serial ATA specification under Sanitize Device Set. "The effectiveness of cryptographic sanitization relies on the security of the encryption system used [e.g. AES], as well as the designer's ability to eliminate 'side channel' attacks that might allow an adversary to extract the key or otherwise bypass the encryption," say the UCSD researchers. Although the researchers agree that cryptographic erasure is a good method for sanitizing SSDs, they also found that "all single-file overwrite sanitization protocols failed: Between 4 percent and 75 percent of the files' contents remained on the SATA SSDs."
New Trojan Informs Mac Users That Their Machines Aren't Immune
InfoWorld (02/28/11) Samson, Ted
A variant of a popular Windows-based Trojan targeting Mac OS X has surfaced, demonstrating that Macs and Windows can be vulnerable to the same types of threats. Sophos says the Trojan is a variant of a Windows-based remote access Trojan (RAT) called darkComet. Sophos has labeled the malware OSX/MusMinim-A, or MusMinim for short, while the Trojan, however, refers to itself as BlackHole RAT. Sophos says the Trojan is very basic, and can be wiped out with up-to-date antivirus software. Among the Trojan's tricks, it opens a full-screen window from which a user has only one choice—to click a Reboot button. Sophos says the Trojan, still a work in progress, has other disruptive activities, including placing text files on the desktop, running arbitrary shell commands, and issuing restart, shutdown, and sleep commands.
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