PhoneSnoop – DHS Warns Blackberry Users About App

The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is warning BlackBerry users about a spyware program that allows attackers to turn a target’s handset into a microphone that can be accessed remotely.

Source

From Search Security

The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team is warning Blackberry users about new software that could be used by hackers to turn the smartphone into a listening device.

An application called PhoneSnoop can configure the phone’s speakerphone function to enable a hacker to listen to surrounding conversations remotely. The software uses a Blackberry API to intercept incoming calls. Once the software is downloaded and installed, the software is triggered by a simple phone call, placing the device into speakerphone mode.

Sheran Gunasekera, the developer of the snooping application, wrote on his blog that he wanted to shed light on the threats posed by careless use of Blackberry smartphones. Gunasekera said the application can be easily detected and is visible in the Blackberry user interface.

“While the BlackBerry remains one of the more secure devices out there, user awareness and education is paramount to remaining completely safe from spyware,” Gunasekera wrote.

Gunasekera posted a YouTube video demonstrating how PhoneSnoop works. He introduced the tool on Oct. 19, but only made the software available for download Oct. 23, tweaking it to allow users to create a customized trigger number.

The US-CERT warned Blackberry users to password protect their devices and only download software from trusted sources.

“This software allows an attacker to call a user’s BlackBerry and listen to personal conversations,” the US-CERT said. In order to install and setup the PhoneSnoop application, attackers must have physical access to the user’s device or convince a user to install PhoneSnoop.”

Read Full Article

Napolitano Says Al-Qaeda-Style Terrorists Are in U.S.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said terrorists with al-Qaeda leanings are in the U.S. and that the threat of attack “is always with us.”

“It is fair to say there are individuals in the United States who ascribe to al-Qaeda-type beliefs,” Napolitano said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “And so it makes information-sharing, it makes effective law enforcement and it makes the shared responsibility of law enforcement ever so important.”

Information-sharing between federal, state and local law- enforcement agencies is “much improved” since the Sept. 11 attacks, she said.

In September, U.S. authorities indicted Najibullah Zazi, 24, an Afghan immigrant and former Denver airport shuttle-van driver, on federal terrorism conspiracy charges. They found bomb-making instructions on a laptop computer in his rental car.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the case had connections to al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.

Napolitano said she met in New York today with leaders in financial security in order to discuss ways to protect the nation’s financial system from cyber-terrorism or other attacks.

“The financial institutions of this country are part of our bedrock infrastructure,” she said. “They need to be protected. We need to be able to protect them.”

Local Partners Essential In The Fight Against Terrorism

During the recent Homeland Security National Dialogue (QHSR), I had the opportunity to take part in two DHS round table discussions for Bloggers. During those discussions I was able to see first-hand the commitment DHS now has in reaching out to both the public and private sectors. My hope is that this commitment is extended beyond the QHSR and that the open dialogue and round tables are continued and eventually expanded to include other community leaders and stakeholders.

Today, in another show of the Department’s interest in partnerships, Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano delivered remarks at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference in Denver, Colo., emphasizing her commitment to enhanced information sharing with state and local law enforcement partners to combat threats of terrorism.

“Effective information sharing is essential to our partnerships with state and local law enforcement as we work together to secure our country,” said Secretary Napolitano. “DHS will continue to strengthen fusion centers and other collaborative initiatives across the country to enhance our capabilities to combat terrorism and serious crime.”

In her remarks, Secretary Napolitano stressed the Department of Homeland Security’s role as the central conduit of information for state and local partners regarding all threats to the homeland—including terrorism, drug trafficking and border security.

She discussed the vital role of partnerships between DHS and federal, state and local law enforcement and highlighted the success of collaborative initiatives—including the Joint Terrorism Task Forces that strengthen information-sharing between federal partners and 72 fusions centers nationwide.

Secretary Napolitano also outlined the ways DHS is strengthening these partnerships—from creating a new program management office to coordinate the Department’s support of fusion centers to collaborating on the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) initiative that trains frontline officers across the country to identify and document activities possibly linked to terrorism-related crime.

Napolitano Emphasizes Shared Responsibility for Readiness and Resilience

Secretary Janet Napolitano today marked the conclusion of National Preparedness Month by delivering a speech emphasizing America’s shared responsibility for preparedness and stressing the important role that individuals play in building a national culture of readiness and resilience.

“When families are prepared—when communities stand together and stand tall—so does our nation,” said Secretary Napolitano. “United, we send a powerful message to those that seek to do us harm: we cannot be broken, we are America—strong and resilient.”

Secretary Napolitano delivered the speech at the American Red Cross Hall of Service in front of more than 300 volunteers and employees representing the Red Cross, DHS Citizen Corps, and local and regional emergency management agencies from around the National Capital Region—as well as employees of DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“America’s history is not written by the tragedies that have befallen us, but by how we responded to them,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Since our earliest days, every time we have been challenged or have seen tragedy, Americans have shown a sense of purpose and resilience.”

During her remarks, Secretary Napolitano recognized Citizen Corps and Red Cross volunteers who donate their time and energies to train others in critical readiness and emergency response skills while contributing to a culture of preparedness.

“We should measure our nation’s security not just by the borders we strengthen and the laws we enforce, but also by the strength and resilience of the communities we build,” said Secretary Napolitano.

Secretary Napolitano’s remarks on preparedness today build on previous speeches outlining her approach to counterterrorism, delivered in New York City in July, and border security, delivered in Texas in August—and reflect her commitment to ensuring readiness and resilience among all citizens.

DHS Secretary Napolitano To Give Major Preparedness Speech

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will deliver a major speech on national preparedness today at 2:00pm ET. The speech will be streamed live at www.dhs.gov.

In the speeech Secretary Napolitano will thank all of our Citizen Corps volunteers, the Ready Campaign, national partners, and the thousands of others in the National Preparedness Month Coalition for all their hard work.
She’ll also challenge our country to see preparedness as a shared responsibility, and urge Americans to build a year-round culture of readiness and resilience in our communities.

DHS Link

Americans In Kuwait At Risk From Terror Attacks

U.S. authorities warned on Tuesday that American citizens in Kuwait remained at risk from terrorist attacks, following the arrest of an al Qaeda-linked network in the Gulf Arab state last week. Kuwait announced on August 11 that it had arrested all six members of an al Qaeda-linked network who planned to bomb the U.S. Army camp of Arifjan, state security headquarters, and “important facilities,” during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Ramadan is expected to start around August 21.

The members of the network who had confessed after their arrest, also planned to attack the OPEC member’s 200,000 barrels per day Shuaiba oil refinery, a security official said.

“The Department of State remains concerned about the continued threat of terrorist attacks and other violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests overseas,” the U.S. embassy in Kuwait said in a communique on Tuesday.

It advised U.S. citizens in Kuwait to register with the embassy, and “maintain a high level of vigilance” to avoid being targets of any possible attacks by terrorist groups. “Potential targets may include U.S. contractors, particularly those related to military interests,” the message said.

Read Full Article

GAO: Major Security Flaws at Federal Buildings

The police agency in charge of protecting thousands of federal buildings nationwide has failed to keep bomb-making materials out of several high-security facilities in the past year, according to a Government Accountability Office report released today. In the past year, investigators successfully smuggled bomb-making materials into ten high-security federal buildings, constructed bombs and walked around the buildings undetected, exposing weaknesses in security provided by the Federal Protective Service.

[...]

Investigators carried liquid explosives and low-yield detonators — materials investigators note are not normally carried into federal buildings. The GAO said security concerns prevent it from revealing the exact locations or cities of the affected facilities, but that eight of them were government owned, while two were leased. They included offices of a U.S. senator and House member, as well as offices for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State, the GAO reported. In one instance, the GAO obtained a building security tape showing an investigator walking through a security checkpoint with bomb making materials.

Read Full Article

Getting Executive Buy-in For Disaster Preparedness

The biggest obstacle to putting a good disaster recovery plan in place is inadequate funding. My current survey (see the bottom of this entry) asks how the recession has affected your disaster recovery plans, but it may not just be the recession that’s causing the problem.

Even before the economy tanked, there has always been a disconnect between executive decision-makers and the IT department in areas that don’t immediately deliver ROI or contribute to an ongoing process. “Just in case” technology like disaster recovery just sits in the background. You need it, you know that you need it, but it’s sort of like a spare tire in the trunk of your car. You hope you never have to use it, and you probably forget to check the air pressure every few months just to make sure it’s still good, and when you eventually take it out it’s gone flat. And here’s a speculation that we all know is true: IT guys are the ones that are more likely to check the air pressure–the C-level guys are the ones with the flat spare.

How do you talk the people upstairs into putting money into disaster recovery? Here’s some ideas.

Hold a disaster preparedness exercise. They will love it, because it sounds productive and cheap. But this is where you get ‘em. As part of the exercise, you make an assumption of a major disaster. They’re expecting a high school fire drill, but you’re going to give ‘em the bottom line. You’ll test out all your procedures, make a nice little manual–but crunch some numbers for your final report. Show them exactly how much money the company would have lost as a result of the major disaster, even though everything seemed to go smoothly. Then show them what you need to avoid that loss.

Read Full Article

DHS Launches ‘The Blog @ Homeland Security’

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of a blog it calls The Blog @ Homeland Security.

It’s described as a new way for DHS to offer an inside-out view of what they’re doing each day to secure the nation.

The blog features a video message from Secretary Napolitano outlining the Department’s five overarching responsibilities, an invitation for visitors to comment and the latest “tweets” from @dhsjournal.

At NTARC we are excited to see the Dept. of Homeland Security moving in this direction, providing the public an opportunity to interact and share their ideas and opinions on some very important issues. Our hope is that Secretary Napolitano will also consider re-starting the Bloggers Roundtable or something of a similar nature in the near future. (please keep us in mind)

You can visit the site at The Blog @ Homeland Security

Security Tight For Obama Visit To Cairo

US president Barack Obama has not yet decided whether his historic speech reaching out to the Muslim world will be delivered on June 4 from a lecture hall at Al Azhar University in Cairo or its main mosque. If the second, his address will take place in the presence of Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the Sunni Muslim world’s greatest religious authority. In any event, Al Azhar is the most eminent school of Islamic learning in the world and the US president therefore expects its impact to far outweigh his first address to Muslims from Istanbul.

His arrival from a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on June 3 is planned to add extra weight to Obama’s dramatic outreach to Muslims, since the king officiates as Custodian of the Holy Places to Islam.

[...]

Giant transports have been landing at Cairo airport, unloading a fleet of armored vehicles, White House helicopters, counter-terror weapons and the vanguard of the 3,000 Secret Service officers backed by CIA and FBI personnel who will secure the US president during his stay in Egypt. Cairo will soon be in turmoil as forces are deployed from a command center at the American Embassy to control sections of downtown Cairo, with guard posts on the Nile River’s banks, the international airport, main railway terminals and approaches to the city.

Some 30,000 Egyptian security personnel including army units stationed in Cairo have been placed on special duty until the American president leaves. Their names and those of the welcoming party at Al Azhar University were submitted to the US presidential security center.

Obama is due to land in Cairo Thursday at 10 a.m., drive to the Abidin Palace to meet President Hosni Mubarak and proceed from there to Azhar University. His convoy will be escorted by vehicles equipped with sensors for detecting firearms and explosives and covered by Marine helicopters overhead.

Until the last minute, the president’s routes to the university have been withheld from Egyptian security authorities as a safeguard against leaks to hostile elements.

Source

Economic Crisis Creating Suburban Survivalists

Six months ago, Jim Wiseman didn’t even have a spare nutrition bar in his kitchen cabinet.

Now, the 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a backup generator, a water filter, a grain mill and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home in the expensive San Diego suburb of La Jolla.

Wiseman isn’t alone. Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists.

Our recommended provider, Nitro-pak has ample supplies on hand at this time but suppliers are warning that they may not be able to keep up with the demand if sales continue to surge. Nitro-pak has been a preferred partner for many years now, offering the highest quality products at the guaranteed lowest prices. Use this link, Nitro-pak Store if you order from them and you’ll also get free shipping.

These people snapping up everything from water purification tablets to thermal blankets shatter the survivalist stereotype: they are mostly urban professionals with mortgages, SUVs, solid jobs and a twinge of embarrassment about their newfound hobby.

From teachers to real estate agents, these budding emergency gurus say the dismal economy has made them prepare for financial collapse as if it were an oncoming Category 5 hurricane. They worry about rampant inflation, runs on banks, bare grocery shelves and widespread power failures that could make taps run dry.

For Wiseman, a fire protection contractor, that’s meant spending roughly $20,000 since September on survival gear _ and trying to persuade others to do the same.

“The UPS guy drops things off and he sees my 4-by-8-by-6-foot pile of food and I say ‘What are you doing to prepare, buddy?’” he said. “Because there won’t be a thing left on any shelf of any supermarket in the country if people’s confidence wavers.”

The surge in interest in emergency stockpiling has been a bonanza for camping supply companies and military surplus vendors, some of whom report sales spikes of up to 50 percent. These companies usually cater to people preparing for earthquakes or hurricanes, but informal customer surveys now indicate the bump is from first-time shoppers who cite financial, not natural, disaster as their primary concern, they say.

Top sellers include 55-gallon water jugs, waterproof containers, freeze-dried foods, water filters, water purification tablets, glow sticks, lamp oil, thermal blankets, dust masks, first-aid kits and inexpensive tents.

Joe Branin, owner of the online emergency supply store Living Fresh, said he’s seen a 700 percent increase in orders for water purification tablets in the past month and a similar increase in orders for sterile water pouches.

He is shipping meals ready to eat and food bars by the case to residential addresses nationwide.

“You’re hearing from the people you will always hear from, who will build their own bunkers and stuff,” he said. “But then you’re hearing from people who usually wouldn’t think about this, but now it’s in their heads: ‘What if something comes to the worst?’”

Online interest in survivalism has increased too. The niche Web site SurvivalBlog.com has seen its page views triple in the past 14 months to nearly 137,000 unique visitors a week. Jim Rawles, a self-described survivalist who runs the site, calls the newcomers “11th hour believers.” He charges $100 an hour for phone consulting on emergency preparedness and says that business also has tripled.

“There’s so many people who are concerned about the economy that there’s a huge interest in preparedness, and it pretty much crosses all lines, social, economic, political and religious,” he said. “There’s a steep learning curve going on right now.”

via Newsmax.com – Economic Crisis Creating ‘Suburban Survivalists’.

Crisis Preparedness – What We Can Learn From Israel

Report suggests that America can learn much from Israeli example on public crisis preparedness.

It’s a widely accepted truism in American politics that an engaged citizenry is the best defense. Yet, when it comes to emergency preparedness, the American public remains incredibly unengaged in the process, largely lacking both the knowledge and the opportunity to participate proactively and constructively.

A report titled Public Role and Engagement In Counterterrorism Efforts: Implications of Israeli Practices for the U.S., prepared for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Science and Technology by the Homeland Security Institute (a federally-funded research and development center which serves as the Department’s think tank) examines both why that is the case, and how study of Israeli citizen involvement in crisis response might help US preparedness and “social resilience” improve.

The study was co-authored by Dr. Sibel McGee (the principal investigator), Catherine Bott, Vikram Gupta, Kimberly Jones and Alex Karr. Published as a PDF document it has not yet been released on the web.

“The successful management of emergency situations,” according to the report, “ requires not only competent emergency response personnel and prudent and effective emergency plans by the local/state/federal government, but also a public that is equipped and empowered with knowledge and information.”

The report cites Israel as a primary example of a nation with an effective track record in motivating and maintaining public mobilization in support of counterterrorism efforts. A reflection of that success, the report suggests, is that “the level of public understanding of the terrorist threat and readiness for terror-induced emergencies is such that Israeli public has an impressive ability to bounce back from frequent terrorist attacks.”

To accomplish this, according to the report, the Israeli government pursues a comprehensive and diverse program to bolster a strong public resilience and utilizes it as a deliberate counterterrorism tool.

Source

Cheney, Obama – No Middle Ground on Gitmo Approach

The headlines will say two big, dueling speeches about the war on terror were delivered in Washington on Thursday, one by President Barack Obama and one by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

And that’s true, as far as it goes. But it would be more accurate to say that four quite different speeches were delivered.

Mr. Cheney gave one speech, a remarkably focused, blistering attack on those who criticize the Bush administration’s methods for detaining and interrogating terror suspects. Scathing in terminology, scornful in tone, Mr. Cheney took on those critics and gave not an inch of ground to them. He questioned both the integrity and wisdom of those, including the current president, who would reverse policies that he said have kept America safe for more than seven years since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Obama: I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As commander-in-chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation.

Cheney: The interrogations were…legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent deaths of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.

Those who prefer their Washington policy debates to be cloaked in understatement or delicate euphemisms may have been taken aback by the ferocity of the Cheney rejoinder, which crackled in intensity, even while being delivered in the former vice president’s trademark monotone style.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama, facing the trickier task of selling a policy to both parties, really gave three speeches wrapped in one. His first was meant to address critics on the right, who charge he has gone soft on terror and that his decision to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will bring to U.S. soil dangerous extremists.

via No Middle Ground on Gitmo Approach – WSJ.com.

Cheney: Obama Endangers The Nation

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday continued his verbal attack against President Obama, saying that the country is more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration took power.

Mr. Cheney said that administration’s dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.

“That’s my belief,” Mr. Cheney said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I think to the extent that those [Bush-era] policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies … means in the future we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.”

Source

Next Page »