-----Original Message----- From: NIPC Watch To: Daily Distribution Sent: 4/25/02 5:38 AM Subject: NIPC DAILY REPORT: 25 APR, '02 NIPC Daily Report 25 April 2002 The NIPC Watch and Warning Unit compiles this report to inform recipients of issues impacting the integrity and capability of the nation's critical infrastructures. CIA warns of Chinese plans for cyber-attacks on US. According to a classified CIA report, US intelligence officials believe the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage. Analysts have become increasingly concerned that authorities in Beijing are actively planning to damage and disrupt US computer systems through the use of Internet hacking and computer viruses. Although the assessment concludes that China has not yet acquired the technical sophistication to do broad damage to US and Taiwanese systems, it maintains that this is the "intended goal" of the People's Liberation Army in China. "The mission of Chinese special forces includes physical sabotage" of vulnerable systems, which some analysts said is driven by China's hostility toward Taiwan. (LA Times, 25 Apr) Klez.H virus still strong. More than a week after it first started spreading, the latest variant of the Klez worm continues to infect PC users that haven't taken steps to protect themselves. While the number of computers infected by the Klez.H variant falls short of such epidemics as the LoveLetter worm, the virus has still shown surprising resiliency, said Steve Trilling, director of antivirus software maker Symantec's security response team. The Klez variant has generated nearly 20,000 incident reports from Symantec customers in a little over a week, Trilling said. Included in that number, are 250 corporations that have experienced multiple infections. In total, Klez reports make up 75 percent of all reports that the company receives, easily putting it at the top spot for threats. (CNET News.com, 24 Apr) Federal airport workers to debut at BWI. Baltimore-Washington International Airport will become the first in the country with an all-federal security force by about mid-June, marking the national debut of the government's air travel security system. The first 225 government-trained baggage screeners are to arrive at BWI on 30 April, checking passengers at two concourses. The baggage screeners are the advance guard of a new federal workforce that officials acknowledged will grow to as many as 65,000 people nationwide -- twice as many workers as some in Congress expected when they authorized the federal takeover of air security. In addition to sending screeners to BWI, a team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. will train 32,000 screeners who will scrutinize passengers at checkpoints and gates nationwide. The training is to begin immediately. (Washington Post, 25 Apr) Vast oil stores put Caspian Sea on the political map. Recently officials from Turkmenistan, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan met to continue discussing the division of the oil and gas regions at the bottom of the Caspian Sea. In December 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell described the oil reserves in Kazakhstan as being of "critical importance" to Western energy consumers in the near future. The US Department of Energy estimates that by 2020, the Caspian could produce up to 6 million barrels of oil per day, which equates to six percent of the world's forecasted daily demand. The challenge of moving Caspian oil to market is critical because the region is hundreds of miles from major shipping ports, thus necessitating the construction of expensive pipelines. The US supports creating a pipeline to the west, from Azerbaijan to a Turkish port city on the Mediterranean, and avoiding the pipelines through Russia and Iran currently in existence. (ABC News. 24 Apr) WWU Comment: The US need to search for viable oil and gas alternatives remains a major political and environmental issue. With continued political instability in the Middle East and the recent defeat of the bill to authorize oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, alternatives with the seeming potential of the Caspian Sea could prove to be an important opportunity in the not too distant future. The capability of the US and other major energy consumers to avoid relying on nations that have been recognized state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, further confounds the ability of transporting mined oil and gas, especially across landlocked nations. Nuclear waste routes to storage site reconsidered by federal officials. Federal officials are re-examining their plan to ship nuclear waste through major cities. A major concern of critics is that terrorists could use the casks containing radioactive material as ready-made "dirty bombs." Among the problems is maintaining the secrecy of schedules and routes. Truck shipments can be kept secret more easily than rail shipments because of the many roads they can follow, but they carry greater risk of accidents because of other vehicles on the roads. Trains, however, must follow routes set by the alignment of tracks, which include trips through large cities. Explosives planted along track beds or armor-piercing missiles could rupture the casks in populated areas, spreading deadly radiation over a wide area. (Denver Post, 22 Apr) Area's preparedness improving. Businesses in the Washington, DC area are far more ready to deal with a terrorist attack or other emergency than they were on 11 September. They've bolstered security, drafted contingency plans and improved communication with government officials. There remain big holes, however, some of which could take years to fill in, according to a private-sector task force on emergency preparedness that will present its findings on 25 April at the Potomac Conference, an annual meeting of the region's business and government elite. Even those companies that are more directly involved with responding to threats concede they have work left to do, though they say the region's infrastructure is much more secure now than it was seven months ago. (Washington Post, 25 Apr)
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