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London, Thursday, October 15, 2002
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INFOCON News
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IWS - The Information Warfare Site
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[News Index]
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[1] House lawmaker renews push for cybersecurity measures
[2] Report on blonds won't wash
[3] The Book on Mitnick Is by Mitnick
[4] Pro-Islamic militant hacker groups boost attacks security company
says
[5] Gartner slams MS security after latest flaw
[6] A radical rethink of international relations
[7] Professor stresses Net security awareness
[8] Bugbear virus threat increases
[9] Pentagon contempt is hurting the cause
[10] Internet rekindles 'Nigerian scam'
[11] New U.S. strategy in Afghanistan: winning hearts and minds
[12] Help! MS issues another critical security fix
[13] Hong Kong news site hacked
[14] Plan aimed at Iraqi commanders raises doubts
[15] FBI names 20 most unwanted security flaws
[16] P2P network funded by US government
[17] Quantum cryptography takes to the skies
_________________________________________________________________
News
_________________________________________________________________
[1] House lawmaker renews push for cybersecurity measures
By Maureen Sirhal, National Journal's Technology Daily
A key House lawmaker is moving to reauthorize legislation that would
impose security requirements on federal agencies through two different
vehicles, signaling what he sees as the urgency of extending information
security measures before Congress adjourns.
The House Government Reform Technology and Procurement Policy
Subcommittee on Tuesday approved legislation to promote online
government and included in that bill, H.R. 2458, a provision-based on
the Federal Information Security Act (FISMA)-to permanently reauthorize
2000 Government Information Security Reform Act (GISRA) and institute
other cybersecurity requirements for agencies.
Subcommittee Chairman Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, added the FISMA
language to the e-government bill even though he already has won House
passage of the proposal as part of another measure, H.R. 5005, that
would create a Homeland Security Department. A Senate e-government bill,
S. 803, also contains a provision to permanently reauthorize GISRA.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1002/100102td1.htm
----------------------------------------------------
(This story has nothing to do with IA, but it is a brilliant example
of how some media folks pick up stories without checking the facts.
I still remember the rather ridiculous printer virus story during the
Gulf War.... WEN)
'... Jeffrey Schneider, a spokesman for ABC News, said that the anchors
got the information from an ABC producer in London who said that he had
read it in a British newspaper. ...'
[2] Report on blonds won't wash
Lawrence K. Altman The New York Times
Thursday, October 3, 2002
Forecast demise of fair hair had no roots in truth
NEW YORK NEW YORK: Apparently it fell into the category "too good to
check."
Last week, several British newspapers reported that the World Health
Organization had found in a study that blonds would become extinct
within 200 years because blondness was caused by a recessive gene that
was dying out. The reports were repeated by anchors for ABC and CNN.
There was only one problem: The health organization says that it never
reported that blonds would become extinct and that it had never done a
study on the subject. "WHO has no knowledge of how these news reports
originated," the organization, a Geneva-based agency of the United
Nations, declared. The agency added that it "would like to stress that
we have no opinion of the future existence of blonds."
http://www.iht.com/articles/72474.html
----------------------------------------------------
[3] The Book on Mitnick Is by Mitnick
By Michelle Delio
2:00 a.m. Oct. 3, 2002 PDT
Six months ago, the world's most notorious hacker was wondering if he'd
ever be able to live down his reputation as a serial killer of corporate
computer systems.
Kevin Mitnick was unemployed, depressed and in danger of losing his
treasured amateur radio license. He was starting to think that even
though he'd been released from prison, he'd still somehow be serving
time forever.
Now he's happily wondering how he'll manage to juggle a cross-country
book tour schedule with the demands of his new security business.
Things are certainly looking up for the man who was once the media's
evil hacker poster boy. Mitnick even has the government's seal of
approval now -- the Federal Communications Commission has just
officially declared him a reformed man and has decided to allow Mitnick
to keep his radio license.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55516,00.html
Mitnick hawks notorious laptops
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960540.html?tag=lh
----------------------------------------------------
(FUD of the week. WEN)
[4] Pro-Islamic militant hacker groups boost attacks security company
says
By THE JERUSALEM POST STAFF
LONDON
Pro-Islamic hacker group Unix Security Guards increased its activity
tenfold in September to highlight the Palestinian cause and show
solidarity with the Arab world as tensions rise in regard to the US
conflict with Iraq, according to computer security firm mi2g.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFu
ll&cid=1033392592857
----------------------------------------------------
[5] Gartner slams MS security after latest flaw
By John Leyden
Posted: 02/10/2002 at 18:16 GMT
The latest flaw with a major Microsoft product shows Redmond is unlikely
to have anything that approximates to secure software until 2004 at the
earliest.
That's the damning assessment of analysts Gartner in response to a
serious, but little publicised, vulnerability with FrontPage Server
Extensions that emerged last week.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/27393.html
----------------------------------------------------
[6] A radical rethink of international relations
William Pfaff International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times Syndicate
International
Thursday, October 3, 2002
National Security Strategy
PARIS The new U.S. National Security Strategy document, issued on Sept.
20, is an implicit American denunciation of the modern state order that
has governed international relations since the Westphalian Settlement of
1648.
That agreement, which ended the Thirty Years' War, recognized the
absolute sovereignty and legal equality of states as the basis of
international order. These principles of sovereignty and equality have
been generally recognized ever since, if often in the breach. The
consensus among governments and jurists has been that without
acknowledging national sovereignty as the foundation of law, the world
risked anarchic power struggles.
The National Security Strategy statement is thus a radical document,
whether Condoleezza Rice, reputedly its main author, understands this or
not. There was another declaration of this kind, made 154 years ago: the
Communist Manifesto. It denounced the existing international order of
monarchies and "bourgeois" republics in the name of a new and superior
legitimacy, that of the proletariat. It claimed this to be a universal
and liberating legitimacy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/72506.html
----------------------------------------------------
[7] Professor stresses Net security awareness
By DAVID BROOKS, Telegraph staff
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The term "cyberterrorism" produces reactions ranging from fear to scorn,
but Dartmouth professor Andrew Macpherson thinks the reaction should be
more prosaic: Roll up your sleeves and take action.
"A lot of people feel it's not that important - what's wrong if a few
teenage hackers deface a few Web sites?" Macpherson said in a recent
interview. "But awareness is an absolutely critical issue - and that is
one of the very positive aspects we've seen in the past year, following
9/11. There's more awareness as a nation, debate and dialogue concerning
cyber security."
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=27&SubSectionID=357&Ar
ticleID=65250
----------------------------------------------------
[8] Bugbear virus threat increases
Bugbear itself has a bug making it easier to spot
The Bugbear e-mail virus is still going strong and could have infected
hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.
Estimates of the damage the virus has done are difficult to make. One
anti-virus firm MessageLabs has reported 60,000 copies so far.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2296117.stm
----------------------------------------------------
'... There is too much criticism-with-contempt oozing from the Pentagon,
which, unfortunately, has become the voice of America lately. It feels
as if America does not have a rounded foreign policy anymore, only a
defense policy. I would like to hear more of Secretary of State Colin
Powell's voice - a voice that says America is not just about disarming
rogues, although it will if it has to, but also about inviting others
into America's future. ...'
[9] Pentagon contempt is hurting the cause
Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times
Thursday, October 3, 2002
America's image problem
NEW YORK It is hard to believe that just a year ago in the wake of Sept.
11 the French newspaper Le Monde carried the headline "We are all
Americans now." What a difference a year makes.
Today, I figured, that headline would probably read: "We are all
anti-Americans now." So I called Alain Frachon, a senior editor of Le
Monde, and asked him how his paper was viewing America today.
I was close. He said: "The same columnist who wrote that piece a year
ago on 9/11 wrote another one this year on the first anniversary. This
year, though, his headline was: 'We are all still Americans - but not
every day now.'"
http://www.iht.com/articles/72508.html
----------------------------------------------------
[10] Internet rekindles 'Nigerian scam'
Fraud complaints on increase in central Illinois
By CHRIS DETTRO
STAFF WRITER
The popularity of the Internet has brought with it a resurgence of a
fraud scheme generically known as "advance fee fraud" and more commonly
called the "Nigerian scam."
Versions of the scheme have circulated since the 1980s, but the Central
Illinois Financial and Cybercrime Task Force has recorded a recent
increase in central Illinois consumer complaints.
"The Nigerian scam is just one example of many," said Jack Fox, resident
agent in charge of the Springfield office of the U.S. Secret Service.
"There is so much of it now it is just ridiculous. The advent of the
cyberworld has kind of rekindled it to like it was in the mid-'80s when
it was running big time."
http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/N10022002,h.asp
----------------------------------------------------
[11] New U.S. strategy in Afghanistan: winning hearts and minds
The Washington Post The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 2, 2002
KABUL The U.S. military campaign against Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants
is undergoing a subtle but important shift, relying less on air and
ground assaults and more on digging wells, school construction and
"stability operations," according to American officials and Western
diplomats.
The change is most visible in the realm of "civil-military operations,"
the army's term for humanitarian projects aimed at winning friends in
potentially hostile terrain. Such teams operate in 11 villages and
cities, a number that is slated to grow to 15, while the number of
civil-military affairs specialists - most of them reservists - will rise
from 150 last month to 350 by early November, U.S. officers say.
http://www.iht.com/articles/72353.html
----------------------------------------------------
[12] Help! MS issues another critical security fix
By John Leyden
Posted: 03/10/2002 at 13:26 GMT
Microsoft has released a patch to fix critical flaws within Windows Help
Facility which could enable attackers to execute arbitrary code on a
victim's PC.
The HTML Help facility in Windows includes an ActiveX control which
provides much of its functionality. One of the functions exposed via the
control contains an unchecked buffer, Microsoft says, warning that the
flaw poses a critical risk for all Windows users.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/27409.html
----------------------------------------------------
[13] Hong Kong news site hacked
Thursday, October 3, 2002 Posted: 9:18 AM EDT (1318 GMT)
HONG KONG (AP) -- Mainland Chinese who went online Thursday to read a
Hong Kong newspaper were redirected by hackers to a Web site full of
Falun Gong messages, a newspaper spokesman said.
Several mainland readers of Ming Pao newspaper's online edition
complained about being sent to the Web site run by the Falun Gong
meditation sect, which is outlawed in mainland China as an "evil cult."
Kevin Lau, Chief Operating Officer of www.MingPao.com, said the
newspaper alerted mainland authorities to the hacking, which targeted
servers in China, but the problem was not immediately solved.
Ming Pao published an online story about the incident and said it
suspected Falun Gong was responsible.
"We can't directly do anything about it," Lau told The Associated Press
by telephone.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/10/03/china.hack.ap/index.html
----------------------------------------------------
[14] Plan aimed at Iraqi commanders raises doubts
By John Diamond, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - Defense and intelligence officials are raising doubts about
a classified Pentagon plan to persuade Iraqi commanders to hold back
their most lethal weapons in the event of war with the United States.
Officials familiar with the psychological operations, or "psyops," plan
say its aim is to persuade Iraqi weapons handlers to disobey any order
Saddam Hussein issues to launch chemical or biological attacks in the
face of a U.S. invasion. Methods would include hacking into Iraqi
military computers, dropping leaflets on Iraqi military bases, jamming
Iraqi radio and television and substituting signals sent by special U.S.
broadcasting aircraft, and contacting key officers through clandestine
intermediaries or even e-mail.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-09-22-psyop_x.htm
----------------------------------------------------
[15] FBI names 20 most unwanted security flaws
By John Leyden
Posted: 03/10/2002 at 11:23 GMT
The FBI has teamed up with the SANS Institute to draw up a list of the
worst 20 security vulnerabilities bedevilling Windows and *Nix systems.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/27407.html
----------------------------------------------------
[16] New P2P network funded by US government
14:28 01 October 02
NewScientist.com news service
A team of government-funded US scientists is building a Peer-2-Peer
(P2P) network that they say will solve technical problems with existing
P2P networks, such as Gnutella and Kazaa, and might even one day
supersede the web.
The network, dubbed the Infrastructure for Resilient Internet Systems
(IRIS), will speed up searches and information transfer over the
internet, and aims to foil "Denial of Service" attacks by hackers - in
which a web server is swamped with requests for a page until it crashes.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992861
----------------------------------------------------
[17] Quantum cryptography takes to the skies
19:00 02 October 02
NewScientist.com news service
Quantum cryptography keys encoded in photons of light have been
transmitted more than 23 kilometres through air, British researchers
have announced. They say the breakthrough is an important step towards a
global communications system that is completely secure.
Earlier in 2002 a Swiss company managed to send quantum keys over 60
kilometres. But this was through optical fibres, which limits the
technology to ground-based transmission.
"Our experiment paves the way for the development of a secure global
key-distribution network based on optical links to low-Earth-orbit
satellites," says John Rarity, at QinetiQ, the public arm of the UK's
defence research agency.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992875
----------------------------------------------------
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Copyright 2002, IWS - The Information Warfare Site
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IWS - The Information Warfare Site
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