CRIME NIPC Daily Report for 21 May 2002

From: George Heuston (GeorgeH@private)
Date: Tue May 21 2002 - 07:13:31 PDT

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    State Department tests info sharing. The State Department launched a
    pilot project last week in India and Mexico to share information across
    agencies, using technology to plug security holes such as the kind that
    allowed some of the 11 September hijackers to obtain U.S. visas.  The
    goal is to create a collaborative environment to enable federal
    employees worldwide to check information in real-time.  The 20-week
    pilot project with 2,500 users is being run in Mexico, India, and
    Washington, DC.  Contributing agencies will be responsible for updating
    information in the system, enabling embassy officials to check the
    databases of 40 government agencies to see if the applicant has a record
    before deciding to issue the individual a visa. (Federal Computer Week,
    20 May)
    
    Report warns of poor security at Research Reactors with weapons-grade
    Uranium. As Russia and the U.S. step up security of their nuclear
    materials, a new report raises concerns about inadequate safeguards of
    uranium used at hundreds of civilian research reactors in 58 countries.
    The report released on 20 May urges the U.S. and Russia to launch a
    global effort to end the use of highly enriched, or weapons-grade,
    uranium at these research facilitates. In most cases the uranium was
    provided by either the U.S. or Russia. "Security at these hundreds of
    buildings varies widely from excellent to appalling," said the report.
    "In some cases security is provided by a single sleepy watchman and a
    chain-link fence."  The report said that despite the heightened
    awareness since the terrorist attacks, "the U.S. and global response to
    the threat of nuclear terrorism are not remotely commensurate with the
    threat."  (Associated Press, 20 May)
    
    Magaw says airports can meet deadline.  The chief of the new federal
    Transportation Security Administration said on 20 May, the nation's
    airports will meet the 31 December deadline for screening of all checked
    baggage but it may require using a combination of two different types of
    explosive detection equipment.  John Magaw said explosive trace
    detectors may have to be used in some airports rather than larger
    detection machines in order to meet the deadline, which he said is the
    "biggest challenge" facing airports.  About 429 airports are impacted by
    the new federal security requirements.  (UPI, 20 May)
    
    Orlando Water Supply Threatened.  Security to all of Orlando's water
    purification and distribution facilities were beefed up as the result of
    an uncorroborated and vague threat.  Details of the threat were not
    released due to an ongoing investigation.   According to Jim Solomons, a
    spokesman for the Orange County Sheriffs Department, Members of the
    Central Florida Regional Homeland Security Task Force met on 19 May and
    "implemented appropriate safety and security measures."  (CNN, 19 May)
    
    Worm infects Kazaa network.  Ever popular file sharing networks are
    coming under attack as antivirus experts detect a "first of its kind"
    worm crawling through the Kazaa network.  Security watchers warned on 20
    May of the "Benjamin" worm, which attacked users of the peer-to-peer
    network over the weekend. Because of the popularity of file sharing
    networks such as Kazaa, Benjamin is not short of victims.   When
    Benjamin infects a computer, it creates a directory accessible by other
    members of the Kazaa network. It then regularly and frequently copies
    itself into this directory under a multitude of different names, duping
    users searching for similarly named files.  Once the worm is downloaded
    onto another machine and executed, it repeats the process.  Benjamin is
    the first worm found to infect the Kazaa network, but other file sharing
    systems - Gnutella, for example - have come under attack in the past.
    (Vnunet.com, 20 May)
    ~dmh
    



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