FW: NIPC Watch Daily Report 31 August 2001

From: George Heuston (georgeh@private)
Date: Fri Aug 31 2001 - 12:01:52 PDT


-----Original Message-----
From: NIPC Watch [mailto:nipc.watch@private] 
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 7:43 AM
To: daily@private
Subject: NIPC Watch Daily Report 31 August 2001

Significant Changes and Assessment  - The NIPC issued Assessment 01-019,
"Buffer Overflow Vulnerability in Telnet Daemon," on 30 August.  A new
worm called "x.c", designed to exploit this vulnerability, has been
discovered.  Although that specific worm has been disabled, other
malicious code variants could take advantage of the same vulnerability.
Vendor patches are available and NIPC urges consumers to contact their
vendor to obtain the appropriate fix for their operating system..  This
vulnerability has the potential to impact the victim by allowing an
intruder to copy, delete, or execute any program on the victim's system.
The NIPC assessment can be viewed at the following link:
www.nipc.gov/warnings/advisories/2001/01-019.


Private Sector -  Cross site scripting, or CSS, has proven itself to be
a formidable opponent in the battle to secure the Web. The attack
involves a method whereby an unauthorized script is passed to a Web
server for execution - even if the server is secured against running
such scripts. Simply by visiting a Web site or by reading an HTML
formatted e-mail, users can potentially become the unwitting victims of
malicious hackers.  Leading providers of Internet services such as
Microsoft Corp. have long advised customers to "avoid promiscuous Web
browsing." However, some of the most mainstream sites, including
Microsoft's own Hotmail service, were at risk to a  vulnerability
discovered by experts at WhiteHat Security.  Although Hotmail was
affected, the attack is not vendor-specific. The full scope of the
findings also includes all HTML-ware Web applications. (Source: ZDWire
Plus, 31 August)

Government -  The FBI has not yet issued any warrants for the arrest of
individuals suspected of authoring the Code Red Worm, a spokesperson for
the agency's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) said.  An
investigation into the release of the original worm and several variants
is still pending, according to NIPC spokesperson Deborah Weierman. "We
haven't said anything about suspects in the Code Red case at this point.
We are continuing our analysis and monitoring infected systems. But we
are making no comment at this time about whether we have suspects," said
Weierman. (Source: Newsbytes, 30 August)

International -   RSA Conference 2002, the world's largest international
encryption and data security conference, will be held in Tokyo on 29-30
May.  The conference will be jointly organized by encryption software
company RSA Security Japan Ltd. and trade show and conference producer
Key3Media Events Japan Inc. In addition to a trade expo, the conference
will feature discussions on a broad range of topics, including security
technology for the Internet and cellular phones, and cyberspace laws and
standards ( Source: Tokyo Nikkei Telecom 28 August)

 Singapore has attempted to deal with the problem of cybercrime through
legislation, enforcement and severe sanctions by the courts. The key
legislation dealing with computer crime is the Computer Misuse Act,
1998. The Criminal Investigation Department has set up two specialized
branches investigating crime in this area: the Computer Crime Branch and
Computer Forensic Branch. The police have extensive powers of
investigation under the Computer Misuse Act. They may arrest, without
warrant, any person reasonably suspected of committing any offence under
the act. The courts have also clearly indicated that computer crime will
be severely dealt with. The recent landmark case involved a 17-ear-old
student who hacked into Swiftech Automation's computer system and made
an unauthorized modification to Singapore Cable Vision's server. The
student was ordered to undergo 30 months of probation by the District
Court. In overturning this decision, the Chief Justice stated that
"probation orders ... with the usual restrictions on the offender to
remain at home between dusk and dawn are not realistic solutions for
these new crimes, which more often than not are committed by offenders
from home." The accused was sentenced to imprisonment for four months
instead. ( Source: SPH AsiaOne LTD, 28 August)

Military - NTR

U.S. SECTOR INFORMATION:

Banking and Finance - NTR
Telecommunications  - NTR
Emergency Services - NTR
Water Supply - NTR
Gas and Oil Storage Distribution - NTR
Government Services - NTR
Electrical Power - NTR
Transportation - NTR

NOTE: Please understand that this is for informational purposes only and
does not constitute any verification of the information contained in the
report nor does this constitute endorsement by the NIPC of the FBI.



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