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Orange County: 8 Killed in Salon - Suspect Held
Associated Press (10/13/11) P. A10 Flaccus, Gillian
Eight people were killed and one person was seriously injured in a shooting at the Salon Meritage beauty salon in Seal Beach, Calif., on Wednesday. The shooting took place at about 1:30 p.m., a time when the beauty salon was packed with customers. According to police Sgt. Steve Bowles, it remains unclear whether the suspect opened fire from the entrance to the beauty salon or whether he went through the building while shooting his victims along the way. Bowles noted that the bodies of the victims were found throughout the store, though he said that may have been due to the fact that people had been shot in the front of the salon as the gunman entered and then ran for cover. The wounded individual was found outside the building, though it is not clear whether he was trying to escape when he was shot or if he was the one person who survived the shooting. The gunman escaped after the shooting, but police found him about half a mile away shortly after the incident. The suspect surrendered without incident. Authorities do not know what the suspect's motive was in the shooting. However, they said that he may have had a relationship with someone at the salon. A salon employee who was not working on Wednesday said that the alleged shooter was the husband of one of her colleagues.
Huffmaster Launches Virtual Security Service
SecurityInfoWatch.com (10/12/11) Griffin, Joel
The Michigan-based security services company Huffmaster has launched a new virtual security service known as "VirSec" that provides remote video monitoring, remote access management, and hosted security services. According to Huffmaster President and COO Peter Johnson, VirSec was developed through work with a client hoping to meet the requirements of the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards program. "They sat down with us and said 'we've got to come up with a way to provide a level of security that DHS is looking for, but do it as cost-effectively as possible,'" Johnson explained. "We proposed to them the idea of putting a central person in our offices here that would have access to the camera systems that we had help them to specify and get installed post 9/11 at all of their sites. (They had) IP cameras integrated with their access control system in a way that would allow us to monitor them centrally, which was part of the original design." Huffmaster is now offering a similar service to other customers, after conducting an official pilot of the technology at an office complex in 2009. The company is also offering VirSec to resellers, who will be provided with marketing and Web materials. They will also be permitted to rebrand the offering as their own should they choose to do so. Johnson expects end-users for the product will include critical infrastructure sites, banks, commercial office spaces, and healthcare facilities.
Retail Survey: Retail Crime on the Rise
Security Director News (10/11/11)
The Retail Industry Leaders Association's 2011 Crime Trends and Leading Practices Survey has found that organized retail crime is a growing problem for some retailers. Of the 34 RILA members who took part in the survey, 60 percent said that they had experienced an increase in the amount of shoplifting committed by organized crime rings compared with last year. Another 44 percent said that they had experienced more online theft and fraud by organized crime rings, while 38 percent said that they had seen an increase in gift card fraud. However, theft from internal sources was a bigger problem, with 73 percent of respondents saying that insiders are increasingly stealing cash and merchandise from them. But many of the RILA members who took part in the survey said that flash mobs were not a growing problem. Nearly 80 percent said that the frequency of flash mobs has been flat over the past year, though 21 percent said that they had experienced an increase in flash mob incidents.
ID Theft Ring Arrests Reinforce the Importance of Bank Security
Bank Systems & Technology (10/10/11) Yurcan, Bryan
News from the New York City borough of Queens that 111 individuals have been indicted in what is being called the largest identity theft takedown in U.S. history reinforces the importance of bank security. The defendants are allegedly members of five separate organized forgery and identity theft rings based in Queens and have ties to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. They were charged in ten indictments with stealing the personal credit information of thousands of American and European consumers and costing individuals, financial institutions and retail businesses more than $13 million in losses over a 16-month period. According to the DA's office, credit card account numbers were stolen by staff at banks, mostly by bank tellers, as well as restaurants and shops using skimming devices. According to the indictments, the stolen account numbers were ultimately sent to a "manufacturer" who re-encoded the information onto the magnetic strips of blank credit cards using a "reverse" skimming device. Bank executives are already concerned about security these days, with recent studies forecasting that bank losses due to cybercrime will increase steadily over the next several years.
A Game We All Win: Dumping DRM Can Increase Sales While Reducing Piracy
Ars Technica (10/10/11) Lasar, Matthew
A trio of economists from Rice and Duke universities are challenging the notion that Digital Rights Management (DRM) functions to thwart online music piracy. In their study, the researchers set up an economic game model based on the "Nash equilibrium" and used a hypothetical environment in which there exists an album of music. Participants were faced with the choice of purchasing or pirating tunes. The three stage model has a record label choose music formats, retailers setting their prices and has consumers maximize utility by choosing the best product available. Their game theory research sides with a growing sentiment that DRM technologies will actually sometimes encourage illegal file sharing. Under certain conditions, "we find that eliminating DRM restrictions can lead to an increase in sales of legal downloads, a decrease in sales of traditional CDs, and a decrease in piracy," said Dinahy Vernik of Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business, Devavrat Purohit and Preyas Desai of Duke University. The argument was made in a paper entitled "Music Downloads and the Flip Side of Digital Rights Management Protection."
Obama Intensifies Pressure on Iran
Wall Street Journal (10/14/11) Entous, Adam
The Obama administration is ratcheting up pressure on Iran in response to its alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. U.S. diplomats have been authorized by President Obama to tell Iranian representatives that Tehran's involvement in such plots is unacceptable and that it is illegal under international law. Diplomats have also been instructed to tell Iranian representatives that Tehran must punish the individuals who were involved with the plot, that its support for terrorism must end, and that it must meet its obligations to the international community. However, President Obama has yet to detail any possible consequences for Iran's alleged involvement in the assassination plot. But some U.S. officials have said that sanctions could be placed on Iran's central bank in order to increase the financial pressure on Tehran. The European Union and other U.S. allies need to implement similar sanctions in conjunction with the U.S. in order to make them as effective as possible, U.S. officials said. Some officials are warning against implementing sanction against Iran's central bank, saying that doing so could roil the world's oil markets unless major oil producing countries increased output in order to make up for any decrease in Iranian exports.
Terrorism Plan Foiled by Islamabad Police
International News (10/13/11) Anjum, Shakeel
Pakistani police have arrested several suspects accused of planning a major attack against important targets in Islamabad. According to information from the captured men, they planned to launch missiles and rockets at the Diplomatic Enclave, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the Presidency, the Prime Minister's Secretariat, the Convention Center, and the Islamabad Club. At the same time, militants would storm the Parliament House, using sniper shooters and suicide bombers to take control of the building and hold parliamentarians hostage. They also revealed that they had carried out all the reconnaissance of their targets and identified the best locations to launch military and rocket attacks. Five terrorists have been arrested in association with the plot, while nine other suspects remain at large.
U.S. Accuses Iranians of Plotting to Kill Saudi Envoy
New York Times (10/12/11) Savage, Charlie; Shane, Scott
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday that an Iranian-American man has been arrested on charges of being involved in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. Authorities say that Mansour J. Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized American citizen who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, approached an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in May asking him to use his connections with the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas to hire the group to carry out the attacks. Over the next several months, Arbabsiar and the informant--who Arbabsiar believed was actually a member of Los Zetas--came to an agreement in which Arbabsiar would pay $1.5 million to Los Zetas to carry out the plot to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. But the informant was still working for DEA, which allowed law enforcement authorities to record and watch all of the meetings and conversations between the two men. That in turn allowed law enforcement officials to arrest Arbabsiar in New York in September as he attempted to fly to Mexico to guarantee Los Zetas that it would be given the rest of its money for carrying out the attacks. Holder said that the plot had been directed and approved by high-ranking officials in Iran's Quds Force, which is part of the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. However, it is still unclear whether the plot was thought up by a rogue element in Iran or whether it was carried out with the approval of senior Revolutionary Guard or Iranian government officials.
Report Card: US Unprepared for Bio Attack, Outbreak
The Hill (10/12/11) Yager, Jordy
The Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center's report card has given the U.S. C and D grades for its efforts to prepare and respond to a biological terrorism attack. The report card looked at several categories, including detection and diagnosis, attribution, communication, the availability of medical countermeasures for a biological attack, medical management, and environment cleanup. The federal government was given mostly D grades with regard to a large biological attack that results in a large number of deaths or illnesses in several different cities, though it received a grade of C for communication. The grades come despite the fact that the U.S. government has spent more than $65 billion over the past 10 years on preparing for a biological attack. However, the report card noted that the U.S. government's ability to respond to a small biological attack has improved over the past decade. According to the WMD Center, President Obama and Congress should work to assess the nation's ability to respond to a biological attack, and should take steps to better prepare for future attacks.
Congressmen: Probe Whitey Bulger Blunder
Boston Herald (10/11/11) Cassidy, Chris; Sweet, Laurel J.; Dwinell, Joe
The identity of the Icelandic woman who led the FBI to James "Whitey" Bulger and his girlfriend was revealed in a report printed in the Boston Globe on Sunday. A reporter for the Globe said that the newspaper discussed its decision to publish the woman's name with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office, though neither expressed concerns about the impact that the public identification of the informant would have on her safety. The FBI has not commented specifically on the identification of the informant in the Bulger case, but did say that its policy is not to divulge the identity of those who help the bureau solve crimes. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and Rep. Stephen M. Lynch (D-Mass.) are asking for answers as to why the informant's identity was revealed in the media.
Android's Popularity Attracts Malware Authors
Wall Street Journal (10/13/11) Clayton, Nick
Czech computer security firm AVG recently released its findings from its Community Protection Network, which found that Android's popularity makes it an increasingly attractive target for hackers and malware. "We have noticed a marked increase during 2011," AVG said. "Malicious applications are often masked in useful applications, games or adult content," the report stated. The report highlighted the fact that many digital currencies are now seen by some cyber criminals as just as valuable as cash, and usually easier to obtain. iTWire interviewed AVG's CTO Yuval Itzhak on the matter. He said that as banks seek more protections for credit card transactions, there are increasing obstacles for cyber criminals to make adequate use of cards.
Florida Man Charged in Celebrity Email-Hacking Case
Wall Street Journal (10/13/11) Morse, Andrew
Thirty-five-year-old Christopher Chaney of Jacksonville, Fla., has been arrested for allegedly hacking the e-mail accounts of more than 50 members of the entertainment industry including Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, and Christiana Aguilera. Federal documents say that Chaney allegedly used publicly available information about the victims to guess passwords and security questions. He then gained control of the accounts and had mail forwarded to his e-mail so that he could view correspondence even if his targets changed their passwords. According to the indictment, the stolen information included movie scripts, financial information, and personal messages, some containing nude photos. There is no evidence that Chaney attempted to profit from the thefts. He has been charged with 26 counts of computer hacking, wiretapping, and aggravated identity theft, and faces 121 years in federal prison if he is convicted.
Sony Suspends 93,000 Online Accounts After Illicit Logins
IDG News Service (10/12/11) Alabaster, Jay
The accounts of 93,000 users of Sony's PlayStation Network, Sony Entertainment Network, and Sony Online Entertainment have been suspended following a number of unauthorized login attempts. According to Sony, the unauthorized login attempts--which took place between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10--were an attempt to test bulk login information that had been obtained from other sources on the networks. Sony also said that it is not aware of any breach of its databases in relation to the unauthorized login attempts, only 0.1 percent of which were successful. However, some of the accounts that were successfully broken into may have been used to make unauthorized purchases. No credit card data is believed to have been stolen in the attack. Users whose accounts were broken into are being asked to reset their passwords.
New Style of Attack Can Slip Past Firewalls, Prevention Systems
Government Computer News (10/12/11) Jackson, William
Researchers at the Finnish security company Stonesoft, which announced in 2010 the discovery of a new breed of evasion strategies for malicious exploits, say they have identified a new set of advanced evasion techniques (AETs) that can be delivered to a network via port 80 HTTP traffic. The discovery means that AETs can pass undetected by firewalls, which exacerbates the threat posed by exploits using the techniques, says Stonesoft's Brian Vosburgh. He says the company has reported 163 new AETs to the Finnish Computer Emergency Response Team. AETs are combinations of basic evasion techniques that can be used to circumvent traditional security blocks, such as intrusion detection and prevention systems, that might stop a standalone trick. Because they can use multiple combinations of simpler components, there are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of potential AETs. The value of identifying a few hundred possible combinations lies in increasing the threat's profile, Vosburgh says. "It's about driving industry to address traffic normalization," he notes.
Study: IT Execs Worried About Insider Threat
DarkReading (10/12/11) Wilson, Tim
Insider activity is at the root of a growing number of network breaches, according to an annual Amplitude Research study of IT managers and network administrators. The study reveals a growing concern about insider threats, especially unauthorized access by current and former employees. Of the numerous reasons cited for network breaches, more than half could be traced to internal issues—absence of strong security policies, employee negligence, unauthorized access by current or future employees, and the lack of software updates. Concerns about unauthorized access nearly doubled from the 2010 study. Hacker/network attacks accounted for just 14 percent of intrusions; viruses, malware, and spyware were 10 percent. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) also are becoming more frequent victims of attacks, the study found. Half of the SMBs in this year's survey said they have experienced an intrusion of their user machines, office network, and/or servers, versus 36 percent in 2005.
Abstracts Copyright © 2011 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD |
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