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Jane?s Launches Terrorism Events Map
2008-05-16 18:46:00 If you are at all involved in physical security as a portion of your portfolio no doubt you have considered terrorism in your risk assessments. The grand dame of mil space security information, Jane’s, announced a new service for tracking terrorism and insurgent activities around the globe. From the press release: Jane?s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre ...
Full Disk Encryption And Physical Security: Locked Servers Stolen
2008-04-22 07:04:00 Pogowasright.org is reporting that Central Collection Bureau (CCB), a private company in Indiana, has had a security breach that could potentially affect over 700,000 people. According to the site, eight computers were stolen from the CCB plus a server. Other sites claim that the server was part of the eight computers; there is a lot of confusion, with everyone trying to upload the story ASAP. Regardless, everyone agrees that this is very bad news, and it has affected at least 159 companies (there?s a list out there in cyberspace. Thank goodness for comma delimiting and file imports in Excel). Why is this bad news? Because the information was stored as a clear text file. That is, the contents were not encrypted. The information in question includes dates of birth, last known address, names, Social Security numbers, and, in some cases, medical codes (not sure what they are; hopefully, they?re just internal codes used by a hospital, and not t...
Charlton Heston Has Left The Building
2008-04-06 16:44:00 From CNN: Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84. The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman ...
Thief Scoops Georgia DHR Employee Details
2008-03-28 17:36:00 Well, we get word (thx Chris) that the Georgia state department of human resources suffered a data theft last week. Apparently an external hard drive with the personal information of former and current employees stored on it was stolen “by an unauthorized person”. They did not release the number of affect but, just to put ...
10 Finger Prints Are Better Than 2, So Says The DHS
2008-03-26 21:27:00 The DHS now wants all 10 digits for foreign arrivals. Two fingerprints are apparently not sufficient anymore. Not too long until the probings begin I guess. From the NY Times: ?This felt like, What else do you want from me?? Mr. Docx continued. ?Pretty soon it?ll be a full naked body scan, with my irises and ...
More Than 100 FAA Badges Unaccounted For
2008-03-06 18:52:00 Um, whoops? In the last 5 years 122 FAA badges have been “lost or stolen” according to this NBC 5 report. In short, if you have one of these you have a back stage pass to an airport. From NBC5i (Dallas): Dozens of federal inspector credentials giving access to airports have gone missing, an NBC 5 ...
Burma Fears Rambo
2008-02-11 15:05:00 I firmly believe that every Monday needs a little bit of levity. It turns out that the cowardly men of the ruling junta in Burma have issued a compete ban on the latest Rambo flick. Why? They fear the Rambo. From Bangkok Post: In the movie, ageing war veteran John Rambo, played by Stallone, ventures into ...
RCMP Is Looking For An Olympics Security Contractor
2008-01-17 01:31:00 Looking to make a bag of money? With the Olympics fast approaching the RCMP is looking for their man a security contractor that can deliver a physical security perimeter for the 2010 Olympics. From the Canadian Press: The Mounties’ Integrated Security Unit is seeking bidders that can supply and install intrusion detection systems around 25 buildings and ...
Half A Mil To Make The World Happier
2008-01-10 14:12:00 A security company named Clear has thrown down the gauntlet and I (along with many others) really hopes that someone picks it up. Why? The challenge is simple. Make security checks at airports easier. For that, you can pocket yourself a cool half million. Here are the criteria: * Achieves acceptance by the Transportation Security Administration ...
Physical Security, Beyond Jumping Turnstiles
2008-01-09 16:36:00 Doing physical security audits is a piece of my past and it still interests me to this day. I had a great time breaching offices and data centers with nothing more than a smile and some balloons. Everyone loves balloons. RSA recently did a survey of some govies in the US and here is the ...
Leopard Print Taser Zaps To The Beat
2008-01-08 13:45:00 The height of absurdity. Now, you can listen to your mp3 collection…on the holster for your leopard print taser??? From CBC: Taser wants to make it easy for people to integrate its C2 “personal protector” stun guns into their lives, company spokesman Peter Holran said. “If people buy the C2 Taser and leave it in a drawer or ...
China Finds Help For Olympic Security
2007-12-28 14:18:00 As the Olympics approach in Beijing the Chinese are diligently preparing for the event. One aspect of it that can never be overlooked is the security of the event. Not only the physical as the world witnessed at the games in Munich in 1972 but, also from a network security aspect. There really is a ...
Benazir Bhutto Has Died
2007-12-27 14:32:00 Just got word that former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto was killed at a rally this morning. She was apparently shot in the neck by an assailant. The attacker was allegedly wearing a suicide vest. Details are sketchy right now. More to follow. [UPDATE] 8:24 am Reuters is reporting that she has been been gravely injured but, ...
Gitmo SOP Manual Take Two
2007-12-04 20:06:00 Interesting. The Washington Post is reporting today that Wikileaks has published another SOP manual from Gitmo. From the Washington Post: The manual discusses the facility’s “behavior management plan” for the first two weeks after a detainee’s arrival, when he has no access to the International Committee of the Red Cross or a chaplain: “The purpose of the ...
Moronic Art Project Calls Out Bomb Squad
2007-11-30 17:24:00 If ever there was a case for handing out prophylactics and saying “for the love of (insert deity) let it end with you”, this is it. An art student, Thorarinn Jonsson, from the OCAD placed a fake bomb behind the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in what was apparently part of his final school ...
Sensitive Gitmo Manual Leaked Through Wiki Site
2007-11-15 04:10:00 From Wired: A never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military’s Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002. The 238-page document, “Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures,” is dated March 28, 2003. ...
Blackwater?s Parent Has Spies for Hire
2007-11-05 17:24:00 Blackwater’s parent company continues to build out its mercenary army. Now, The Prince Group has announced a new operation. From the Washington Post: The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks — high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence — that mirrors the slate of former military officials ...
Notes On Physical Security
2007-11-03 01:56:00 Sometimes I just have to shake my head. I have done physical security assessments in the past and no matter how much the “sales guy” tells me that their site is secure I never buy it. Nor should you. Recently, I did a walk through at a site and the Guy Smiley character that was ...
Pipe Bomb Puts Nuke Plant On Lockdown
2007-11-02 20:43:00 This morning the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station was put into a lock down when a contractor was found to have a potential pipe bomb in his truck. From KPHO: NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the worker, who is involved in upgrades at the facility, was stopped and detained at the entrance of the plant Friday ...
Biometrics Piloted At Gatwick
2007-10-10 03:29:00 Biometrics have found their way into Gatwick airport. They have rolled out a pilot program to check fingerprints for arrivals from Sierra Leone. The BioDev pilot has been running in the airport’s North Terminal since 18 September and is due to end in April next year. At present only arrivals from Sierra Leone who have been ...
Glitch Renders ?Virtual Fence? Useless
2007-09-21 14:41:00 From the Miami Herald: Because of a software glitch, the first high-tech “virtual fence” on the nation’s borders remains inoperable, three months after its scheduled debut. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he is withholding further payment to the prime contractor, Boeing Co., until the success of the pilot project stretching 28 miles near the border southwest ...
Russian Highroller Tries To Buy B-52
2007-08-27 14:43:00 Nope, not the band. The plane. For a moment I was thinking that this was an outtake from the Nicolas Cage flick Lord of War. A USAF aircrew displaying a B-52 Stratofortress bomber at the Moscow Air Show last week was shocked, to say the least, when a wealthy Russian offered to buy their aircraft. Reuters ...
Thieves Steal Servers From UK Finance House
2007-08-09 15:04:00 “There was an element of data encryption” Um, what exactly does that mean? From vnunet.com: First Response Finance has issued an alert to its customers and suppliers after thieves broke into its offices. In one of the first such robberies of its type thieves broke into the Manchester Office and specifically targeted servers that held the financial details ...
New York Plans Surveillance Veil For Downtown
2007-07-10 03:17:00 CNet News has an interesting piece on the curtain of video surveillance that is going to descend on NY. In a similar vein to the video monitoring in London UK, NY plans to roll out their cameras by the end of the year. The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble ...
Baghdad Embassy Plans Leaked
2007-06-01 05:01:00 Data leakage that could cost lives. Today I noticed that the Miami Herald had a piece about a design firm in Kansas City that had posted detailed plans for the forthcoming US Embassy in…Baghdad. Detailed plans for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad appeared online Thursday in a breach of the tight security surrounding ...
Cisco and Other Techs Get Into Surveillance
2007-05-30 00:24:00 “Sometimes it feels like, somebody is watching me” heh From USA Today: Terrorists, vandals and other villains skulking in the shadows should take note of Cisco Systems’ recent acquisition of BroadWare Technologies. The BroadWare deal, while small in dollars, highlights the rising demand for companies that make video surveillance gear. Driving that trend is the confluence of homeland ...
TSA Security Rips Off 12 Year Old
2007-05-08 04:34:00 I quite often read about TSA and the bizarre goings on with that agency. This one however, earns at least one of the TSA folks a dirt bag of the year award. When 12 year old Jeffery Martin flew home after his birthday he realized that he had lost some weight on the way. $265 ...
Stolen U.K. Gov Laptop Contains Staff Payroll Data
2007-05-03 19:18:00 We have another report of a laptop with crucial information having gone walkabout. This time the unlucky affected are the UK National Health Service staff. The machine containing payroll data — including names, addresses and bank details — was stolen from the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, which hosts the payroll for NHS staff across the county. ...
CCTV On Steroids
2007-05-01 23:39:00 The marches today show the outrage on both sides of the immigration debate in the US is raging. This debate did remind me of a presentation that I attended two weeks ago put on by IBM. I was attending what I thought would be, and I quote, Emerging technologies to mitigate the threats The new world of ...
College Security On The Mend
2007-04-27 19:37:00 In light of the tragic events at Virginia Tech schools around the US, and for the matter most of the world are reviewing their security. One such school is the Citadel in Charleston SC. This school has a beautiful campus and I was fortunate enough to have attended a friends wedding there. Now, the chains ...
The (in)security of wide area networks?
2007-04-25 17:26:00 One of the tasks of the last few weeks was fighting a pitched battle against some telco sales guys with some very funny ideas about information security. It seemed completely appropriate to them to claim that their MPLS network was secure and that our data was secure because it was in an MPLS-VPN. Yeah… I was giggling ...
How To Protect Your Precious PC Data: From Physical Security To Encryption
2007-02-23 06:34:03 Data security has been in the news a lot lately, as a result of some high-profile corporate losses and thefts of laptops, USB flash drives and other data storage equipment. As more users rely on laptops for their main computers, the chances increase that more PCs will be lost, stolen, or damaged. And this means that the potential for data loss or abuse is high and continues to grow. Actually, even desktops aren’t safe. As PCs get smaller and more powerful, their hard drives can be used to store large databases on them — information that makes them potential targets for theft. "All the big guys in financial services have been investing heavily in disk encryption for laptops, desktops, and portable devices," says Ralph Figueiredo, a sales manager with Aurora Enterprises and a data security consultant. "They are worried about internal theft of systems from their offices as well." One of his clients in Southern California recently had the CEO’s des... |
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