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Police Search for Motive in Killing of Airport Worker

By Sean Murphy

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma City police investigators worked to piece together why a man waited to gun down an airline employee outside Will Rogers World Airport on Tuesday in an ambush that forced hundreds of travelers to take shelter and prompted authorities to shut down the state’s busiest airport for hours.

Police later discovered the suspected shooter dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a pickup truck in a parking garage near where they believe he waited, watching airport employees come and go before shooting and killing Michael Winchester, 52, a Southwest Airlines employee.

“We do believe this was a premeditated act against the victim,” said Oklahoma City Police Capt. Paco Balderrama. “This was not random, and obviously the investigation is ongoing in reference to the other details.” Continue reading

DHS Releases Strategic Principles for Securing Internet of Things

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a set of “Strategic Principles for Securing the Internet of Things (IoT), Version 1.0.” These principles highlight approaches and suggested practices to fortify the security of the IoT and will equip stakeholders to make responsible and risk-based security decisions as they design, manufacture, and use Internet-connected devices and systems. Continue reading

Threat Considerations to Faith Communities and the Community at Large

On July 26, 2016, the InfraGard Maryland Members Alliance (IMMA) co-hosted a full-day seminar at Garrett College with the Maryland Governor’s Faith-Based Community Outreach Initiative Office and the FBI. The seminar addressed threats to faith institutions and active shooter incidents.

The seminar drew nearly 100 attendees from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Other agency partnering representatives included Marvella Gray from the FBI’s Community Outreach Program and Jennifer Gray from the Governor’s office, who also emceed. Continue reading

Yahoo Took Its Time Investigating Massive  Security Breach

By Michael Liedtke

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo detected evidence that a hacker had broken into its computer network at least 18 months before launching an investigation that discovered personal information had been stolen from about 500 million user accounts.

The timeline outlined in a regulatory filing raises further questions about why it took Yahoo so long to realize the severity of its security breakdown. It also could provide Verizon Communications with reason to revise or terminate its $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo’s online services. Continue reading

EU Police Agency Blames Human Error for Data Security Breach

By Mike Corder

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — European Union police agency Europol on Nov. 30 blamed human error for a breach of its data security rules by a former staff member that reportedly led to dossiers containing information about terrorism investigations becoming visible online.

Dutch investigative television show Zembla reported that a Europol staffer — in a breach of the agency’s tight security rules — took dossiers home and copied them to a backup drive that was linked to the Internet. Continue reading

Ted Koppel Talks to InfraGardNCR About Grid Cyber Security

By Talley Cross Philpy, InfraGardNCR VP-Communications

How is the U.S. government preparing for a cyberattack against the electric grid? What can be done to ameliorate the effects of a massive attack? On Friday, March 4, journalist Ted Koppel addressed these questions and many more to InfraGardNCR members gathered at Boeing’s Arlington, Va., auditorium. InfraGardNCR President Kristina Tanasichuk conducted the interview with Koppel, author of the best-selling book Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath.

There isn’t universal agreement on whether a cyberattack on the electric grid could have a massive impact, since the grid is somewhat decentralized, and there are redundancies. The grid is also designed with some compensatory mechanisms in place. According to Koppel, the disagreement over attack impact has made the issue less urgent to the U.S. government, which he contended is reactive versus proactive, and focuses its efforts on fighting fires in the present. The media is similarly preoccupied with reporting unfolding dramas rather than potential ones, he said, as networks compete fiercely for viewers in the wake of the Internet and digital media explosion. Continue reading

Hospital Cyberattack Highlights Health Care Vulnerabilities

By Tom Murphy

(AP)- cyberattack that paralyzed the hospital chain MedStar in March is serving as a fresh reminder of vulnerabilities that exist in systems that protect sensitive patient information.

That attack came a month after a Los Angeles hospital paid hackers $17,000 to regain control of its computer system and more than a year after intruders broke into a database containing the records of nearly 80 million people maintained by the health insurer Anthem.

In Anthem’s case, only a single password stood between hackers with a stolen employee ID and a chance to plunder the Blue Cross-Blue Shield carrier’s database, according to a federal lawsuit filed by customers over the breach. Continue reading

The Zika Virus Outbreak, Influenza, Ebola in West Africa and Shared Replikin Genomic Peptides for Bio-surveillance

By Sotirios (Sam) Kolontouros

The Problem of Emerging
Diseases

Since the middle of the 20th century both urbanization and agricultural activity has been encroaching on remote wilderness that has had little contact with large human populations. Although this is not unique in history, it has been occurring at both an unprecedented pace and a global scale. The areas that have been impacted the most are among the most rich and diverse incubators of a variety of viruses that the human species has had little contact with. This has led to emerging zoonotic diseases that crash into the population in outbreaks, epidemic and pandemics. With a world interconnected through modern aviation, no point on the planet is more than a day away from direct contact with any other point. This has magnified the problem astoundingly. Continue reading

Home Depot: US Credit Card Firms Slow to Upgrade Security

By Jeff Martin

ATLANTA (AP) — Visa and MasterCard are using security measures prone to fraud, putting retailers and customers at risk of thieves, The Home Depot Inc. says in a new federal lawsuit.

It’s the latest giant retailer to raise the security concerns, with a lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. Last month, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sued Visa Inc. over similar issues.

Atlanta-based Home Depot says new payment cards with so-called “chip” technology, rolled out in the U.S. in recent years, remain less secure than cards used in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Even with chips, U.S. cards still rely on customers’ hand-written signatures for verification, rather than more secure Personal Identification Numbers, or PINs, Home Depot maintains. Continue reading

40 Years Later, Remembering Idaho’s Teton Dam Collapse

By Luke Ramseth and Bryan Clark

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Phone lines were knocked out. Highways were blocked. What Idaho residents heard on June 5, 1976, over the only reliable form of immediate communication — the radio airwaves — was incomprehensible.

“The dam has busted,” Don Ellis said on Rexburg station KRXK.

As the world soon learned, the 305-foot-high Teton Dam had broken in half. Its collapse sent a wall of water through the Teton River canyon, north of the town of Newdale in Fremont County. Downstream, with no canyon to contain it, the flood fanned out for miles across the Snake River Plain. The water turned south, gobbling up cattle, cars and homes on its slow march to Idaho Falls and beyond. Continue reading