In This Issue - CISA Warns of Flaws Affecting IC Systems from Major Manufacturers
- Ransomware Attack Affects 1,000 Vessels Worldwide
- Industrial Espionage: How China Sneaks Out America's Tech Secrets
- Agencies Are on the Hook to Increase OPSEC Training, Education
- Feds Drop Indictment Against NYPD Officer, Army Reservist Accused of Spying for China
- Aviation Industry Warned FAA System Is ‘A Disorganized Catch-All’ Years Ahead of Failure
- ICE Sees Increases in Arrests, Detentions, Known or Suspected Terrorist Expulsions
- NSA Director Pushes Congress to Renew Surveillance Powers
- Biden Lapse Is Latest Public Official Classified File Mishap
- New Rules Require Agencies to Save Chats and Texts
- See the Agenda for IMPACT 2023: Agenda
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NSI’s 36th Annual IMPACT Training Set for April 17-19, 2023 (Chantilly, Virginia) |
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Security professionals from government and the nation’s defense contractors will once again get together for a one-of-a-kind training and education experience. This 2.5-day training experience delivers a unique combination of learning opportunities including: Expert Briefings on Security Threats to the U.S. Industrial Base and U.S. Government; NISP Rule 32 Changes, Compliance and Know-How; Security Practice, Leadership and Know-How; Q&A Sessions with Industry and Government; Networking with both government and defense industry security practitioners.
Security team members who attend learn from top experts and presenters from the U.S. Government Security, Intelligence and Law Enforcement communities; Security Leaders and Experts in the Defense Industrial Base; DSCA Leadership and Representatives; Security Practitioners from Industry and Government. More |
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CISA Warns of Flaws Affecting IC Systems from Major Manufacturers (Hacker News, 1/16/23) |
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CISA has released several industrial control systems advisories warning of critical security flaws affecting products from Sewio, InHand Networks, Sauter Controls, and Siemens. The most severe of the flaws relate to Sewio's RTLS Studio, which could be exploited by an attacker to "obtain unauthorized access to the server, alter information, create a denial-of-service condition, gain escalated privileges, and execute arbitrary code." This includes CVE-2022-45444, a case of hard-coded passwords for select users in the application's database that potentially grant remote adversaries unrestricted access. Also notable are two command injection flaws and an out-of-bounds write vulnerability that could result in denial-of-service condition or code execution. The vulnerabilities impact RTLS Studio version 2.0.0 up to and including version 2.6.2. Users are recommended to update to version 3.0.0 or later. More |
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Ransomware Attack Affects 1,000 Vessels Worldwide (Gov Info Security, 1/16/23) |
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schedules of about 1,000 vessels across the globe. Norwegian classification society DNV, maker of ShipManager software, says it took the servers offline after detecting a cyber incident. Onboard software functionally continues to operate, says DNV, which also sets standards for the construction and operation of ships. "There are no indications that any other software or data by DNV is affected. The server outage does not impact any other DNV services," the company says. It has contacted Norwegian police. DNV says more than 7,000 vessels owned by 300 customers use ShipManager. The attack comes amid mounting concern over the susceptibility of the global supply chain to cyberattacks following Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and worries about the ripple effects of the war for the world economy. More |
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Industrial Espionage: How China Sneaks Out America's Tech Secrets (BBC, 1/16/23) |
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It was an innocuous-looking photograph that turned out to be the downfall of Zheng Xiaoqing, a former employee with energy conglomerate General Electric Power. According to a DOJ indictment, the U.S. citizen hid confidential files stolen from his employers in the binary code of a digital photograph of a sunset, which Zheng then mailed to himself. It was a technique called steganography, a means of hiding a data file within the code of another data file. Zheng used it on multiple occasions to take sensitive files from GE. The information Zheng stole was related to the design and manufacture of gas and steam turbines, including turbine blades and turbine seals. Considered to be worth millions, it was sent to his accomplice in China. It would ultimately benefit the Chinese government, as well as China-based companies and universities. Zheng was sentenced to two years in prison earlier this month. It is the latest in a series of similar cases prosecuted by U.S. authorities. More |
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Agencies Are on the Hook to Increase OPSEC Training, Education (Fed News Network, 1/16/23) |
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Agencies across government face new requirements to develop operations security programs to help reduce the risk of employees inadvertently exposing sensitive but unclassified information. OPSEC activities have traditionally been linked with military and intelligence agencies. But in a national security presidential memorandum signed in January 2021, President Joe Biden directed all executive branch departments and agencies to implement OPSEC programs, according to Rebecca Morgan, deputy assistant director for insider threats at NCSC. “We know adversaries, whether foreign intelligence entities or criminal enterprises, are targeting U.S. government information,” Morgan said. “And they don’t always go after the classified.” The NCSC defines OPSEC as the “systematic and proven security discipline for denying adversaries the ability to collect, analyze, and exploit information, including capabilities and intentions.” More |
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Feds Drop Indictment Against NYPD Officer, Army Reservist Accused of Spying for China (Fox News, 1/15/23) |
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Brooklyn federal prosecutors reportedly dropped their case against an NYPD officer previously indicted for allegedly spying on behalf of the Chinese government. In 2020, Baimadajie Angwang a New York City Police Department officer and Army reservist granted secret-level security clearance by the DoD, was described as the "definition of an insider threat" by FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office William F. Sweeney. He was arrested in September of that year after initially joining the country’s largest police department in 2014. But by Friday, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace’s Office filed vague documents saying their further investigation "obtained additional information bearing on the charges," the N.Y. Daily News reported. More |
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Aviation Industry Warned FAA System Is ‘A Disorganized Catch-All’ Years Ahead of Failure (FCW, 1/13/23) |
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For years before this week's ground stop of U.S. air travel, aviation industry stakeholders have been sounding the alarm on the system that was at the heart of the technical failure. Amid the system glitch, the National Business Aviation Association — a trade group of more than 11,000 aeronautics companies and professionals — issued a statement urging the FAA to modernize the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM, system. “NBAA has been urging the FAA to enhance the resiliency of the NOTAM system since 2018 and ensure that there are strengthened backup capabilities in the event of an outage like the one experienced today,” the group said in a statement. “The NOTAM outage makes clear that when problems are identified, they must be met with proven solutions, so that America retains its world-leading aviation system well into the future.” More |
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ICE Sees Increases in Arrests and Detentions Along with Known or Suspected Terrorist Expulsions (HS Today, 1/12/23) |
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement said “significant” enforcement resources went toward removing individuals under Title 42 as the agency reported in its annual report increases in its detained docket, Alternatives to Detention participants, and expelled terrorists in the last fiscal year. ICE has more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel in more than 400 offices across the world, and operates with an annual budget of about $8 billion. The agency consists of three operational branches — Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) — in addition to management and administration. ERO conducts administrative arrests of noncitizens for violations of U.S. immigration law in the interior of the United States. For FY 2022, ERO reported nearly twice the number of administrative arrests it made in FY 2021: 142,750 administrative arrests, with 96,354 of those categorized as “Other Immigration Violators” as a result of increased Border Patrol encounters and ERO’s assistance to CBP — the majority of those who were taken into ERO custody over the fiscal year were originally arrested by CBP, the report notes, resulting in “significant workload increases for ERO.” More |
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NSA Director Pushes Congress to Renew Surveillance Powers (CBS News, 1/12/23) |
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A top U.S. intelligence official urged Congress to renew sweeping powers granted to American spy agencies to surveil and examine communications, saying they were critical to stopping terrorism, cyberattacks and other threats. The remarks by Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the NSA, opened what's expected to be a contentious debate over provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that expire at year's end. The NSA and other spy agencies use authorities under FISA's Section 702 to collect huge swaths of foreign communications, which also results in the incidental collection of emails and calls from Americans. The law prohibits spy agencies from targeting Americans and requires the FBI to seek a court order to access a U.S. citizen's communications. More |
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New Rules Require Agencies to Save Chats and Texts (Nextgov, 1/11/23) |
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Federal agencies are under new requirements to save electronic messages to and from top agency officials, a move that goes beyond previous email-specific rules to now include chat apps and text messages. New records mandates issued by the National Archives and Records Administration clarify a decade-old rule for retaining electronic communications, expanding the requirement to include “email and other electronic messages” and detailing rules for automating retention for the top echelon of federal officials—known as the Capstone approach. In 2013, NARA established the Capstone approach to electronic document management, allowing agencies to automate retention of emails sent and received by top agency officials depending on that official’s role. The move allowed agencies to shift from having to print out and file all emails sent and received by officials to an automated system. More |
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