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The worm that turned: A new approach to hacker hunting
January 31, 2003 | adminAfter 23 years as a CIA analyst, having briefed the president and his team on every conceivable threat to national security, Bob Gerber was scared. More scared than he’d been in a long time. Holed up in his cramped, 11th floor office on a stark, colorless hallway at FBI headquarters in Washington, Gerber’s stomach turned as he took his first look at a new enemy. It was named Leaves after “w32.leave. worm,” the poisonous file it implanted in unsuspecting computers. Like all worms, Leaves bored through cyberspace, probing Internet connections for holes in personal computers or Web servers. It slithered inside the machines and spewed venomous strings of data that threw its victims into electronic shock. Full Story
Net Attacks Down, But Sophistication Is Up
January 31, 2003 | adminWe saw fewer security incidents last year, but we should expect more serious attacks in the future, experts say. The number of security attacks on the Internet seem to be leveling off after a rocket-like rise during the last decade, but the attacks still happening are more sophisticated, said the president and chief operating officer of security vendor Symantec. John Schwarz, speaking at ComNet Wednesday, said he didn’t have the company’s complete data from 2002 yet, but early indications were that the rise in the raw number of attacks has slowed in the last year. “What is happening is that the seriousness of the attacks is getting more aggressive,” he added. “The attacks are better designed, they’re less perpetrated by school kids that are playing around with scripts, more perpetrated by professionals who are actually targeting a specific commercial opportunity.” Full Story
Canada's biggest Identity theft?
January 31, 2003 | adminIBM has lost a hard drive containing the records of 180,000 clients of an insurance company. Details include “names, addresses, beneficiaries, social insurance numbers, pension values, pre-authorized checking information and mothers’ maiden names”, according to wire reports. Anything else? Oh yes, their bank account details. But is it carelessness, or is it theft? No-one knows yet, but the hard-drive was stored in a supposedly secure facility in Regina, SK, at ISM Canada, an IBM subsidiary. Local police and the RCMP (the Mounties) are investigating. Meanwhile, Co-operators General Insurance Co. has sent a letter to 180K clients this week, warning them of the possibility of identity theft. Full Story
Bush’s new antiterror database plan
January 31, 2003 | adminA forthcoming government database will compile information from all federal agencies and the private sector on people deemed possible terrorist threats, President Bush said Tuesday evening. Bush used his State of the Union address to announce the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), a mammoth data-collection project intended to fuse information collected domestically by police and internationally by spy agencies. “OUR GOVERNMENT MUST have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect all our citizens,” Bush said to applause from the joint houses of Congress. Full Story
Terrorism police arrest fourth man
January 30, 2003 | adminA fourth man has been arrested under anti-terrorism laws, following a series of raids in Manchester and Bury. The 31-year-old, who is believed to be of north African origin, was arrested at an address in Stretford, Greater Manchester, police said. He was detained at around 1100 GMT under the Terrorism Act 2000. Three other men, aged 30, 32, and 35, were arrested under the same act following separate raids by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) at 0500 GMT on Wednesday. Full Story
FBI target Iraqi exiles in search for terror suspects
January 30, 2003 | adminFBI supervisors have been ordered to count the number of Muslims and mosques in their areas and interview up to 5,000 Iraqi-Americans and immigrants in order to assess how vulnerable they are to terrorist attack. The information would help gauge how many terrorism investigations and intelligence warrants field offices across the United States could reasonably be expected to produce, the FBI’s executive assis tant director told a closed briefing of Congress last week. “If the numbers don’t compute, that will trigger an automatic inspection from headquarters to figure out why they aren’t living up to that,” a senior Congressional aide told the New York Times. Full Story
Shoe bomber steadfast in his holy war beliefs
January 30, 2003 | adminDefiant Reid is ‘expendable’ foot soldier, one of many in al-Qaeda, terrorism experts say. Richard Reid, who found his life’s purpose in the rhetoric of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, remains a true believer as he heads to prison. The British petty crook is as committed to a holy war against the West as he was on Dec. 22, 2001, when he tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoe during a trans-Atlantic flight. Reid, 29, has pleaded guilty to eight counts in connection with the foiled bombing. On Thursday, he is expected to be sentenced to life in a federal prison. And given a chance to speak, Reid is likely to echo jailhouse writings in which he described himself as a soldier in a war that considers civilians targets. Full Story
Terrorism Agency Planned
January 30, 2003 | adminPresident Bush announced plans last night for a new center to integrate intelligence on terrorism collected at home and abroad, saying it was necessary to create the most comprehensive picture of possible threats to the United States and its citizens. A senior administration official said the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center will assess intelligence gathered by the CIA, Justice Department, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security and provide “seamless” analysis of the information to the president and other senior policymakers. The new center is expected to take over compilation of the integrated threat matrix — a day-by-day accounting of potential threats — given to President Bush and other senior national security officials each morning. Full Story
Fairfax to Confine Students In Case of Terrorist Attack
January 30, 2003 | adminIf the Washington area were hit by a chemical or biological attack, Fairfax County students would be kept in locked-down schools, inaccessible to parents, while teachers helped undress and shower any who needed decontamination, according to a plan adopted by school authorities. In a throwback to the “duck-and-cover” exercises of the 1950s and ’60s, schools will begin drills — minus the shower scenario — as early as this fall to prepare for potential attacks, Fairfax school security officials said. While the county is the first in the Washington region to develop school procedures for dealing with chemical attacks, the U.S. Department of Education plans to recommend this spring that school systems across the nation do likewise, federal officials said. Full Story
Troops Search Afghan Caves After Clash
January 30, 2003 | adminAmerican forces were carefully combing through a vast cave network on a steep mountain slope Wednesday after the fiercest battle in Afghanistan in nearly a year, the U.S. military said. Two men detained in the fighting were being questioned. King said the military believes the men were followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a renegade warlord who has allegedly linked his forces with remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida. “The man who was detained talked about a link to Hezb-e-Islami, which is Hekmatyar’s military group. We had other intelligence that I cannot go into that also indicated the involvement of this group,” King said. Full Story