| 
"Lawmakers Mull Self-Defense Bills"
Helena Independent Record (MT) (01/16/09) ; McKee, Jennifer The Montana Legislature is considering a bill that would give employees in the state the right to carry a gun at work. In addition, the bill requires employers that prohibit employees from carrying guns while at work to provide them with protection that is similar to what they could provide for themselves if they were armed. If employers fail to do this, they can be held liable for injuries employees suffer as a result of a crime that might have been protected if guns were allowed in the workplace. Montana's Yellowstone County has vowed to oppose the bill, just as it opposed a similar bill that the legislature considered in 2007, said Mark Murphy, the county's chief criminal deputy attorney.
(go to web site) "OSAC: Terrorism Main Risk for Private Sector in 2008"
Security Director News (01/13/09) ; Daniels, Rhianna A report issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council has found that terrorism was one of the top security concerns from U.S. businesses, private-sector organizations, and academic institutions operating abroad last year. According to Todd Brown, the executive director of OSAC and a special agent at the U.S. State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, terrorist attacks around the world targeted U.S. government facilities and personnel as well as U.S.-based businesses and non-governmental organizations. Brown noted that the most significant of these attacks was the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November, in which gunmen stormed two hotels and a Jewish center. Brown added that this attack made U.S. businesses and private-sector organizations operating overseas believe that there was an increased risk of a terrorist attack in India, as well as an increased risk of terrorist attacks on hotels around the world. In addition to terrorism, the report noted that U.S. businesses and nongovernmental organizations with international operations faced other threats in 2008 as well, including piracy. The report noted that the sea lanes off the coast of Somalia became increasingly prone to pirate attacks in 2008. More than 40 vessels were seized by pirates in the area last year. The report also identified corruption and drug-related violence as threats to U.S.-based businesses and private sector organizations operating abroad.
(go to web site) "Eco-terrorism Not Ruled Out as Arson Ruins Oilman's House"
Canadian Press (01/13/09) Police in Edmonton, Canada, have confirmed that a fire at a luxury home belonging to former Syncrude Chief Operating Officer Jim Carter was set with Molotov cocktails. Neither Carter or his wife were home at the time of the fire, which occurred on Saturday and caused about $850,000 in damage. No other injuries were reported. Police are not ruling out any motive for the bombing, which may have been perpetrated by four youths seen running from the area after the fire started. Among the possible motives is environmental extremism. Syncrude, the company Carter retired from in 2007, extracts oil from oil-sands. Environmental terrorism could also be an explanation for the bombing of Carter's home since he is also a director of the Mining Association of Canada, Epcor Utilities, and the Alberta Research Council, a research and development agency that seeks to commercialize a variety of technologies.
(go to web site) "Pirate 'Washes Ashore With Cash'"
BBC News (01/12/09) Five of the pirates who held the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star and its $100 million worth of oil for ransom for nearly two months drowned after being paid a $3 million ransom. According to the leader of the pirates that seized the ship, the pirates' were heading back to their homes in central Somalia on a boat when they encountered rough seas. The boat subsequently capsized. The body of one of the drowned pirates has since washed ashore, along with a plastic bag containing $153,000. The bodies of the other pirates have not been found. Three pirates survived, though they lost their share of the ransom when they tried to swim ashore. Meanwhile, pirate attacks are continuing off the coast of Somalia. Port authorities in Kenya reported Friday that a fishing vessel had been attacked and three members of the ship's crew had been kidnapped.
(go to web site) "Unruly Fans at Games Not Just Faces in Crowd"
New York Times (01/11/09) P. SP5 ; Lapointe, Joe In an effort to crack down on unruly fans, some NFL teams have begun using a system that allows spectators to anonymously report verbal abuse or violence. The system allows fans who are concerned about the behavior of others at the game to send text messages containing the location and a description of the obnoxious fan. Stadium security then uses cameras to get facial recognition of the fan who is acting inappropriately, said Milt Ahlerich, the NFL's vice president for security. Once the offending fan has been picked out of the crowd, security guards move in to deal with the problem. Supporters of the system--which is in place in all NFL stadiums except in St. Louis, Tennessee, and Green Bay--say that it is beneficial because offended fans do not have to confront someone who may become abusive or violent. In addition, the system helps offended fans to not look obvious when looking for ushers and guards to report inappropriate behavior. Some teams are also using other strategies to reduce unruly behavior. For example, officials at the Meadowlands put in screens to block the view of fans on the spiral ramps behind the grandstands because male New York Jets fans were yelling at women to expose their breasts at halftime. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Eagles have begun showing a video about appropriate conduct at games.
(go to web site) 
"Israel Kills Hamas Security Chief, Hits U.N. Site"
Wall Street Journal (01/16/09) ; Levinson, Charles; Solomon, Jay Hamas has confirmed that an Israeli airstrike on Thursday killed its security chief, Interior Minister Said Siam, along with his brother and son. The death of Siam represented a tactical victory for Israel in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, which was launched Dec. 27 in response to a rash of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli territory. Meanwhile, Israel drew international condemnation for a military strike at the United Nation's headquarters in Gaza. Three people were injured and a warehouse containing humanitarian aid caught fire after the attack, according to a U.N. spokesman. Israel said it shelled the U.N. building after Hamas militants fired at Israeli soldiers and sought cover there. The attacks came as U.S. and Israeli officials finalized an agreement that would establish an international monitoring and interdiction regime to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas. The agreement will also likely address the construction of barriers to prevent weapons from being shipped from Egypt to Gaza, and seek to boost the diplomatic efforts Egypt is making to negotiate a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is expected to sign the agreement with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today in Washington.
(go to web site) "Expecting More Protests, City to Hire Guards"
San Francisco Chronicle (01/16/09) P. B5 ; Jones, Carolyn Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums announced that the city will hire unarmed private security guards to patrol the downtown area and supplement the police department. City officials expect more violent protests over the New Year's Day killing of an unarmed man by BART police. Former Officer Johannes Mehserle was arrested and charged with the murder of Oscar Grant. Although most protestors have been peaceful, 48 downtown businesses were vandalized during two recent protests. In addition to the private security guards, additional police officers will be assigned to a downtown beat over the next few weeks. The city will also provide $2,000 to each business victimized during the protests to help pay for repairs.
(go to web site) "Pakistan Arrests 124 People With Alleged Ties to Mumbai Attacks"
Associated Press (01/15/09) Pakistani Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik announced Thursday that Pakistan has arrested 124 people in connection with November's terrorist attacks on Mumbai. However, it remains unclear how many of those arrested are still in custody. Among those being held are Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of the Pakistani charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which helped established the militant group that has been blamed for the attacks on Mumbai, Lashkar-e-Taiba. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, who allegedly planned the attacks on Mumbai, are also in custody. In addition to the arrests, Malik said the Pakistani government had taken steps against 20 offices, 87 schools, two libraries, seven religious schools, and several other organizations and Web sites connected to Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Authorities have also closed down several of the charity's relief camps, which are suspected of being used to train militants. Despite the arrests and the actions against Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Malik would not say whether Pakistan would now admit that the attack on Mumbai was launched from its soil.
(go to web site) "Evidence in Terror Cases Said to Be in Chaos"
Washington Post (01/14/09) P. A8 Former military prosecutor Darrel Vandeveld stated in a declaration filed on Jan. 13 in federal court that the system of handling evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay is so chaotic that putting together a just and successful prosecution is not possible. Vandeveld, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, filed the declaration to back a petition pursuing the release of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who has been held at the Cuban military jail for six years. Jawad was a minor when he was detained in Kabul in 2002 following a grenade attack that badly wounded a pair of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their interpreter. Vandeveld, who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, was the head prosecutor against Jawad until he asked to be relieved of his duties in 2008, citing a crisis of conscience. He explained the case has been inundated with problems, including supposed physical and psychological abuse of Jawad by Afghan police and the American military, as well as dependence on evidence that was later discovered to be missing, wrong, or unreliable. In his declaration, Vandeveld stated that Afghan police had made Jawad put his thumbprint on a statement composed in Farsi, a language that the defendant, who is functionally illiterate, does not know. To obtain an admission, and before he was handed over to American forces, the Afghans allegedly threatened to murder Jawad and his family, Vandeveld noted in the declaration. However, Col. Lawrence Morris, chief military prosecutor, claims that Vandeveld "was disappointed when I did not choose him to become a team leader, and he asked to resign shortly thereafter, never having raised an ethical concern during the 9 months I supervised him."
(go to web site) "Mumbai Attacks Call for New Counter Terrorism Strategy: Obama"
Economic Times of India (01/12/09) ; Ist, Ians President-elect Barack Obama said that the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai could lead to a series of copycat attacks. Obama said that his administration will need to address how to prevent a team of commandos from replicating the Mumbai attacks in a U.S. city. Although there are concerns about a new type of attack, the main focus in improving domestic security is to pressure al-Qaida. Once he began receiving the president's daily intelligence brief, Obama took the advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and learned abut some of the successful counter-terrorism policies implemented during the Bush administration. He said that homeland security will continue to be the federal government's number one priority. "I think that we have made progress in certain areas, but those dangers are still there," said Obama. "And those dangers are not going to immediately go away, because we're not talking about conventional armies where we have very clear measures of what their capacity is."
(go to web site) 
"How We Are Tricked Into Giving Away Our Personal Information"
Swedish Research Council (01/15/09) Organizations are poorly equipped to prevent attacks that target human error and weaknesses, says Stockholm University's Marcus Nohlberg, who says social engineering attacks have received little attention from researchers. Nohlberg's research has led to a more thorough understanding of the methods attackers use and what makes people and organizations vulnerable. He says the biggest problem is that information and proper training is not an effective deterrent. "There will always be a small group of people who do not do as they were taught," Nohlberg says. "The best thing is practical training, and it's probable that organizations will need to start running internal checks where they in fact create fictitious attacks in order to identify weaknesses." Social engineering is more expensive to the attacker, as it requires commitment and time, but software and technologies already exist that can interact with people automatically. Nohlberg warns of a time when programs target victims through digital forums such as Facebook, making social engineering attacks as easy and inexpensive as sending spam.
(go to web site) "Researcher: Worm Infects 1.1M Windows PCs in 24 Hours"
Computerworld (01/14/09) ; Keizer, Gregg At least 3.5 million PCs have been infected by a computer worm, and more than 1.1 million over a recent 24-hour period, even though Microsoft released a patch for the bug more than two months ago, F-Secure Corp. warns. The worm, known as Downadup or Conficker.c, is capable of spreading in several ways, including brute-force attacks against systems' usernames and passwords, and from PC to PC via an infected USB device. In addition, the worm begins downloading new versions of itself from a constantly changing list of malicious Web sites once it has infected a system. Microsoft also is urging users to download the patch, saying that users that fail to do so are "playing Russian Roulette" with their networks. Because of the large number of infections, Microsoft added to detection for the worm to its Malicious Software Removal Tool. Microsoft says the highest number of infection reports have come from users in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Korea, Germany, France, and the U.K.
(go to web site) "Group Details 25 Most Dangerous Coding Errors Hackers Exploit"
Computerworld (01/12/09) ; Vijayan, Jaikumar A group of 35 high-profile organizations, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency's Information Assurance Division, has released a list of the 25 most serious programming errors. The goal is to focus attention on dangerous software-development practices and ways to avoid those practices, according to officials at the SANS Institute, which coordinated the list's creation. Releasing the list is intended to give software buyers, developers, and training programs a tool to identify programming errors known to create serious security risks. The list will be adjusted as necessary to accommodate new or particularly dangerous programming errors that might arise. The list is divided into three classes. Nine errors on the list are categorized as insecure interactions between components, another nine are classified as risky resource management errors, and the rest are considered "porous defense" problems. The top two problems are improper input validation and improper output encoding errors, which are regularly made by numerous programmers and are believed to be responsible for the attacks that compromised hundreds of thousands of Web pages and databases in 2008. Other programming errors include a failure to preserve SQL query, Web page structures leading to SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, buffer-overflow mistakes, and chatter error messages.
(go to web site) "Government Spends Over $30 Million to Sharpen Cyber Security Saber"
Network World (01/09/09) The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently named the major contractors that will develop the first phase of technologies aimed at dramatically improving cybersecurity as part of the $30 million National Cyber Range program. The projects will test a variety of technologies, including hot security systems that could modify or replace operating systems and kernels; local-area-network security tools and suites that could require modifying or replacing traditional network device operating systems; and new protocols that may replace portions or the entirety of today's protocol stacks. The projects also will research wide-area-network systems that operate on bandwidths currently not available commercially, and tactical networks that may include mobile ad hoc networks or maritime systems. The program's objectives include being able to offer the use of highly advanced test facilities, establishing an administration capable of certifying and accrediting new technology, and managing security and scheduling testing. "Addressing the vulnerabilities within our cyberinfrastructure must become our long-term national security and economic security priority," says U.S. Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force director Melissa Hathaway. "I don't believe that this is a single-year or even a multi-year investment--it's a multi-decade approach."
(go to web site) "US Security Experts Fear 'Cybergeddon'"
Agence France Presse (01/07/09) Shawn Henry, cyber division assistant director at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), says that beyond weapons of mass destruction, cyberattacks pose the greatest threat to the United States. U.S. experts warn of a "cybergeddon" in which an advanced society that has most of its major infrastructure systems linked to or completely controlled by computers is sabotaged by hackers. Henry says terrorist groups are working to create a virtual 9/11 that would inflict the same kind of damage to the U.S. as the 9/11 attacks did. Last year, Russian hackers allegedly launched a major offensive against Internet networks in Estonia and Georgia, and Palestinian sympathizers have coordinated attacks against hundreds of Israeli Web sites over the past few days. "We're seeing that the folks on the cutting edge of this tend to be the bad guys," says the FBI's Donald Codling. "It's extraordinarily difficult for us to catch them." The FBI's Christopher Painter says cyberattacks are particularly dangerous because the threat is largely invisible and not always taken seriously as a result. "It's hard to get your head around the threat," Painter says. "We often discover a company has been attacked and we tell them that and they don't know."
(go to web site) Abstracts Copyright © 2009 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD | 
No comments:
Post a Comment