South East Shipping News

Explosion on the Sun sends “shock wave” of super-charged particles racing toward Mars Science Laboratory for May 31 collision - Marsnow.info reports

 

According to the spaceweather blog entry CME TARGETS MARS: “The magnetic canopy of sunspot AR1492 erupted on May 27th at 0551UT, producing a long-duration C3-class solar flare and hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Mars.

Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the cloud – they call it a “cloud” will hit the MSL spacecraft (containing the Mars rover Curiosity) on May 31st at 0100 UT followed by Mars itself about 10 hours later.

Because NASA has done nothing to protect the spacecraft from CMEs, NASA has decided to avoid discussion of these threats until and unless one of these destructive, radioactive, radiation “clouds” damages navigation controls or ignites any of the highly explosive fuels and pyrotechnics that are essential to MSL operation.

MSL and Curiosity were designed to withstand a typical range of interplanetary radiation that they would encounter during the 2009 launch window. But a long list of problems in design and execution, especially navigation and landing software, set the MSL launch ahead to the end of 2011. And that was thebeginning of a historic, two-year-long cascade of solar storms and giant CME’s.

Coronal mass ejections expand away from the Sun at speeds as high as 2000 km per second. They carry up to ten billion tons (10¹⁶ grams) of plasma away from the Sun, NASA explains in a posting far away from any mention of MSL.

Coronal mass ejections were once thought to be initiated by solar flares. Although most are accompanied by flares, it is now understood that flares and CMEs are related phenomena, but one does not cause the other. This has important implications for understanding and predicting the effects of solar activity on the Earth and in space.

While a flare alone produces high-energy particles near the Sun, some of which escape into interplanetary space, a CME drives a shock wave which can continuously produce energetic particles as it propagates through interplanetary space.

When a CME reaches the Earth, its impact disturbs the Earth's magnetosphere, setting off a geomagnetic storm. A CME typically takes 3 to 5 days to reach the Earth after it leaves the Sun. Observing the ejection of CMEs from the Sun provides an early warning of geomagnetic storms. Only recently, with SOHO, has it been possible to continuously observe the emission of CMEs from the Sun and determine if they are aimed at the Earth.

One serious problem that can occur during a geomagnetic storm is damage to Earth-orbiting satellites, especially those in high, geosynchronous orbits. Communications satellites are generally in these high orbits. Either the satellite becomes highly charged during the storm and a component is damaged by the high current that discharges into the satellite, or a component is damaged by high-energy particles that penetrate the satellite. We are not able to predict when and where a satellite in a high orbit may be damaged during a geomagnetic storm.

Astronauts on the Space Station are not in immediate danger because of the relatively low orbit of this manned mission. They do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks. The energetic particles from a flare or CME would be dangerous to an astronaut on a mission to the Moon or Mars, however.

Explosion on the Sun sends “shock wave” of super-charged particles racing toward Mars Science Laboratory for May 31 collision

 

According to the spaceweather blog entry CME TARGETS MARS: “The magnetic canopy of sunspot AR1492 erupted on May 27th at 0551UT, producing a long-duration C3-class solar flare and hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Mars.

Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the cloud – they call it a “cloud” will hit the MSL spacecraft (containing the Mars rover Curiosity) on May 31st at 0100 UT followed by Mars itself about 10 hours later.

Because NASA has done nothing to protect the spacecraft from CMEs, NASA has decided to avoid discussion of these threats until and unless one of these destructive, radioactive, radiation “clouds” damages navigation controls or ignites any of the highly explosive fuels and pyrotechnics that are essential to MSL operation.

MSL and Curiosity were designed to withstand a typical range of interplanetary radiation that they would encounter during the 2009 launch window. But a long list of problems in design and execution, especially navigation and landing software, set the MSL launch ahead to the end of 2011. And that was thebeginning of a historic, two-year-long cascade of solar storms and giant CME’s.

Coronal mass ejections expand away from the Sun at speeds as high as 2000 km per second. They carry up to ten billion tons (10¹⁶ grams) of plasma away from the Sun, NASA explains in a posting far away from any mention of MSL.

Coronal mass ejections were once thought to be initiated by solar flares. Although most are accompanied by flares, it is now understood that flares and CMEs are related phenomena, but one does not cause the other. This has important implications for understanding and predicting the effects of solar activity on the Earth and in space.

While a flare alone produces high-energy particles near the Sun, some of which escape into interplanetary space, a CME drives a shock wave which can continuously produce energetic particles as it propagates through interplanetary space.

When a CME reaches the Earth, its impact disturbs the Earth's magnetosphere, setting off a geomagnetic storm. A CME typically takes 3 to 5 days to reach the Earth after it leaves the Sun. Observing the ejection of CMEs from the Sun provides an early warning of geomagnetic storms. Only recently, with SOHO, has it been possible to continuously observe the emission of CMEs from the Sun and determine if they are aimed at the Earth.

One serious problem that can occur during a geomagnetic storm is damage to Earth-orbiting satellites, especially those in high, geosynchronous orbits. Communications satellites are generally in these high orbits. Either the satellite becomes highly charged during the storm and a component is damaged by the high current that discharges into the satellite, or a component is damaged by high-energy particles that penetrate the satellite. We are not able to predict when and where a satellite in a high orbit may be damaged during a geomagnetic storm.

Astronauts on the Space Station are not in immediate danger because of the relatively low orbit of this manned mission. They do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks. The energetic particles from a flare or CME would be dangerous to an astronaut on a mission to the Moon or Mars, however.

  

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Privacy  | Plug-ins	Today is	Saturday, May 26, 2012

2012 Hurricane Season to be "normal" except for this storm off Canaveral

 UPDATE

TROPICAL WEATHER DISCUSSION

NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL

805 AM EDT SAT MAY 26 2012 

 SUBTROPICAL STORM BERYL

 

FORMED IN THE SOUTHWESTERN ATLANTIC

OCEAN AT 26/0300 UTC. THE CENTER OF SUBTROPICAL STORM BERYL

AT 26/1200 UTC IS NEAR 32.0N 76.0W...ABOUT 175 MILES/280 KM SE

OF CAPE FEAR NORTH CAROLINA...AND 240 MILES/385 KM ESE OF

CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA.

 

BERYL IS MOVING WEST-SOUTHWESTWARD 4

KNOTS. THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1001 MB. THE

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WIND SPEEDS ARE 40 KNOTS WITH GUSTS TO 50

KNOTS.

 

 ISOLATED TO WIDELY SCATTERED MODERATE CONVECTIVE PRECIPITATION COVERS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN FROM 30N TO 34N BETWEEN 72W AND 80W. RAINSHOWERS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN 60 TO 90 NM ON EITHER SIDE OF 22N78W AT THE CUBA COAST...TO 26N74W BEYOND 32N70W. A 24-HOUR RAINFALL TOTAL

FOR FREEPORT IN THE BAHAMAS...ENDING AT 25/1200 UTC...IS 9.70

INCHES

 

...TROPICAL WAVES...

 

AN ATLANTIC OCEAN TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 13N46W 7N48W 2N49W.

WIDELY SCATTERED MODERATE TO ISOLATED STRONG CONVECTIVE

PRECIPITATION IS FROM 7N TO 10N BETWEEN 40W AND 50W...AND

TO THE SOUTH OF 7N BETWEEN 50W AND 56W.

 

A CARIBBEAN SEA TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 16N66W...TO CURACAO...

TO 10N70W IN NORTHWESTERN VENEZUELA. NUMEROUS STRONG CONVECTIVE

PRECIPITATION IS ON TOP OF LAKE MARACAIBO IN NORTHWESTERN

VENEZUELA...AND JUST TO THE EAST OF THE LAKE WITHIN A 30 NM

RADIUS OF 9N69W. RAINSHOWERS ARE POSSIBLE IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA

TO THE SOUTH OF 17N BETWEEN 60W AND 72W.

 

 

MIAMI, Florida -- NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida has issued a Special Tropical Weather Outlook due to a non-tropical low pressure system that has become better defined in the Atlantic off the coast of South Florida.

 

The notice, which does not require implementation of hurricane preparations, followed within ours of the announcement by the Hurricane Center that the rest of the season ought to be “Normal.”

 

 

Despite the extraordinary beginning, including 10 inches of flood in rain in a few hours in Doral, west of Miami, the experts say conditions in the atmosphere and the ocean favor a near-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin this season.

 

For the entire six-month season, which begins June 1, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says there’s a 70 percent chance of nine to 15 named storms (with top winds of 39 mph or higher), of which four to eight will strengthen to a hurricane (with top winds of 74 mph or higher) and of those one to three will become major hurricanes (with top winds of 111 mph or higher, ranking Category 3, 4 or 5). Based on the period 1981-2010, an average season produces 12 named storms with six hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.

 

NOAA’s outlook predicts a less active season compared to recent years,” said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D. “But regardless of the outlook, it’s vital for anyone living or vacationing in hurricane-prone locations to be prepared. We have a stark reminder this year with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew.” Andrew, the Category 5 hurricane that devastated South Florida on August 24, 1992, was the first storm in a late-starting season that produced only six named storms.

 

"NOAA's improvement in monitoring and predicting hurricanes has been remarkable over the decades since Andrew, in large part because of our sustained commitment to research and better technology. But more work remains to unlock the secrets of hurricanes, especially in the area of rapid intensification and weakening of storms,” said Lubchenco. “We're stepping up to meet this challenge through our Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, which has already demonstrated exciting early progress toward improving storm intensity forecasts."

 

In fact, new NOAA technology predicted the development of the tropical system that blossomed off North Florida last week, almost a full week in advance, as reported here exclusively at South East Shipping News.

 

That technology suggested half dozen different tracks for a tropical system now emerging over Florida, and suggests a 70% Chance of a Memorial Day Weekend Tropical Storm for Central Florida.

NOAA says that there is some potential for additional development into a tropical or subtropical cyclone late Saturday or early Sunday during the 2012 Memorial Day Weekend as the system moves northeastward into the southwestern Atlantic Ocean.

The low will produce high seas off the southeastern Florida Atlantic coast which is bad news for boaters where Memorial Day weekend is traditionally a busy day for recreational boating and fishing.

 

The low is approximately 200 miles south-southeast of Port Canaveral, Florida.  Other busy cruise ports along South Florida such as the Port of Palm Beach, Port of Miami, and Port Everglades near Fort Lauderdale, Florida may also have local seas affected by this low pressure system.  Cruise passengers should check often with their particular cruise line for local weather updates affecting cruise itineraries.

 

As of 12:55 p.m. today, the low has a medium chance (40%) of becoming a subtropical or tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours.  This is an increase from the 20% chance given by NOAA earlier this morning.

 

Elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 48 hours:

 

 

Deep Blue Sea to Give Up Its Secrets to Google

Posted by Robert K. Ackerman on 5/17/12 • Categorized as Event Coverage

 

The leading global search engine is turning its eye on two-thirds of the Earth’s surface and its underlying terrain, according to a leading official. Michael T. Jones, chief technology advocate for Google Ventures, told an audience at Joint Warfighting 2012 in Virginia Beach how two new endeavors will provide new information about the world’s oceans and their users.

Coming soon will be a Google Map function that tracks every ship in the world through their Automatic Identification System transponders. In a few weeks, two Google microsats will allow 1 billion users to follow ship passages around the world, including military vessels.

“I as a citizen can do this, but the entire Defense Department can’t do this,” Jones said of this low-cost situational awareness system.

Soon, the deepest parts of the ocean soon may be giving up their secrets. Google has built a small sonar buoy that is generating 5-centimeter imagery of the ocean floor in tests. As it passes over long-ignored parts of the world’s oceans, it will be imaging whatever lies on the bottom. This may include the wreckage of crashed reconnaissance satellites or disposed chemical warfare drums, for example.

This information would be available to anyone, and Google has opened a dialogue with the U.S. government about the sudden ubiquity of this kind of data. But that does not remove the threat of others taking the same approach. “If we were the Chinese government, we wouldn’t have that dialogue,” Jones points out. “If Google can do it, so can the Chinese, and they won’t have that dialogue.”

 

      

 

Information Technology Sector

29.

 

May 16, H Security – (International) Avira update fixes Service Pack bug. Avira said it resolved the problems caused by a Service Pack released for its Windows products earlier the week of May 14. Users are advised to trigger a manual update to download the fix. Once installed, the update should prevent the program from blocking legitimate Windows applications on systems running Avira. May 14, Avira released "Service Pack 0" for all of its Windows products. Once the update was installed, the "ProActiv" behavioral monitoring component in Avira Antivirus Premium 2012 and Avira Internet Security 2012 blocked the execution of essential programs and trusted system processes. Those affected by the problem need to update Avira manually; once the update is installed, the ProActiv module can be reactivated. Source: http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Avira-update-fixes-Service-Pack-bug-1576614.html 30. May 16, Computerworld – (International) Google releases Chrome 19, adds tab sync and patches 20 bugs. May 15, Google released Chrome 19, patching 20 vulnerabilities in the browser. Eight vulnerabilities were ranked "high," seven were marked "medium," and five were labeled "low." Seven of the vulnerabilities were described in Google’s brief advisory as "out-of-bounds" read or write flaws, a category of memory bugs where a function does not check that input does not exceed allocated buffers. Google paid bounties to six researchers for reporting nine vulnerabilities, including two not strictly within Chrome. The 11 remaining bugs were uncovered by Google’s own security team or were credited to Microsoft, or were not significant enough to rate a bounty. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227196/Google_releases_Chrome_19_adds_tab_sync_and_patches_20_bugs 31. May 16, H Security – (International) QuickTime for Windows update plugs security holes.

Version 7.7.2 of QuickTime for Windows was released to address 17 security vulnerabilities in the media player. According to Apple, these include integer, stack, and buffer overflows, as well as memory corruption issues, all of which could be could exploited by an attacker to crash the application or execute arbitrary code on a victim’s system. For an attack to be successful, a user must first open a malicious Web site or a specially crafted file. The company notes that, on Mac OS X, many of the holes were

- 13 -

already fixed in Mac OS X 10.7.3 and 10.7.4 Lion, and Security Updates 2012-001 and 2012-002 for Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard systems. A majority of these vulnerabilities were discovered by members of TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative. Source: http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/QuickTime-for-Windows-update-plugs-security-holes-1576777.html 32.

 

May 16, Softpedia – (International) High-ranked sites blacklisted by Google after being hijacked. Zscaler experts scanned the first 1 million Web sites found in Alexa’s top listings and found 621 of them are blacklisted by Google, even though some of them are legitimate Web sites visited by numerous users every day. How can a legitimate Web site get on the Google Safe Browsing list? For instance, subtitleseeker(dot)com, a Web site that offers subtitles for movies and TV shows, is ranked 6,239. The site is not malicious in any way, though Google still cataloged it as such once it detected abnormal activity on it. According to Zscaler, Subtitle Seeker was compromised and altered to host a malicious JavaScript. Other examples include sites that promote "work from home" scams, adult content, and fake antivirus software, but the majority of them were altered to push malicious PDF files, adware, and other types of malware. Some sites were blacklisted because they were found to contain iframes and JavaScripts with malicious intent. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/High-Ranked-Sites-Blacklisted-by-Google-After-Being-Hijacked-269879.shtml 33. May 15, The Register – (International) Scammers exploit wannabe demon-slayers hyped by Diablo III. Cybercriminals targeted the release of Diablo III, May 14, with scams themed around the widely anticipated video game. Blizzard’s games systems collapsed due to the higher than expected demand for the game, the London Guardian reported. The software company is attempting to stop pirates from stealing the new role-playing game by forcing users to log into its servers before they can start playing it. This created a bottleneck centered around log-in systems at Blizzard, which struggled to service demand. Technical glitches were an unexpected bonus for scammers, who launched scams featuring the promotion of bogus crack and key-gen sites. These fake sites might potentially be more attractive than they normally would be as gamers struggle to acquire legitimate content through regular channels. Some of the scam sites GFI Software identified included supposed online key purchasing sites that actually install malicious software. Other spam Diablo III-themed links collated by the security firm lead to unrelated flash games, spam linkdumps, and a "donation experiment" where installs of the software offered enter targets into a supposed prize draw giveaway. These various scams are being promoted through the Web at large and social media Web sites, including Facebook and Pinterest. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/15/diablo_3_scams/ 34. May 15, Help Net Security – (International) Pinterest scam toolkits widen the pool of potential scammers.

Pinterest scam toolkits are available for sale to inexperienced scammers, according to McAfee. Usually sold on underground forums, these toolkits contain many tools. All actions needed to scam users are included and automated: creating Pinterest invites and mass comments on posts, mass creation of bit.ly links, and scraping Amazon for products based on given keywords and then submitting them

- 14 -

to Pinterest. Pinterest scams usually work by luring people in with offers of free gift cards, and the offered links land them either on sites hosting survey scams, on Amazon or other sites (which results in the scammers earning money by referral), or lead them to premium rate trojans (if the Pinterest visitor uses a mobile device to visit the site). Source: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=12931&utm 35.

 

May 15, IDG News Service – (International) Wikipedia warns users about malware injecting ads into its pages. Visitors to Wikipedia who see advertisements on the site have most likely fallen victim to a browser-based malware infection, Wikimedia Foundation, the organization operating the Web site, said May 14. "We never run ads on Wikipedia," said the director of community advocacy for the Wikimedia Foundation. "If you’re seeing advertisements for a for-profit industry ... or anything but our fundraiser, then your Web browser has likely been infected with malware." One example of such malware is a rogue Google Chrome extension called "I want this," the director said. However, similar malicious add-ons might also exist for Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and other browsers, he said. This type of malicious software is known as click fraud malware and can target multiple Web sites at once. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227179/Wikipedia_warns_users_about_malware_injecting_ads_into_its_pages 36. May 15, Threatpost – (International) Stolen certificates found in malware possibly targeting Tibetan groups. The recent trend of attackers using stolen digital certificates to make their malicious executables look legitimate is continuing unabated, with researchers now having come across a series of variants of the Etchfro trojan that are using certificates taken from several companies and issued by VeriSign, Thawte, and other certificate authorities. After looking at recent examples of malware signed with stolen certificates, researchers at Norman ASA, a security firm in Norway, noticed there was an aberrant string in one specific optional field included in the stolen certificates. It is unclear what, if any, purpose the string serves, but Norman researchers started searching the company’s malware database, looking for other samples with the same string. The search yielded more than 20 samples with the same atypical string, and each of them included a stolen digital certificate. All of the malware samples, except one, was some version of the Etchfro trojan. The other one is a version of the Gh0st RAT tool. Source: http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/stolen-certificates-found-malware-possibly-targeting-tibetan-groups-051512 For more stories, see items 23 and

37

Internet Alert Dashboard

To report cyber infrastructure incidents or to request information, please contact US-CERT at

 

sos@us-cert.gov

or visit their Web site: http://www.us-cert.gov Information on IT information sharing and analysis can be found at the IT ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center) Web site: https://www.it-isac.org

Huge sunspots the size of the Earth warn of potential massive solar storms

Tue, May 8, 2012

 
To see where the earth, Mars, the sun and the Mars Solar Laboratory are in space and how much jeopardy each may face with these X class CME's, go to Marsnow.info.

 

Astronomers have observed a huge sunspot group on the surface of the sun, sized at more than 60,000 miles across, which might outbreak in a potentially hazardous solar storm.

From time to time, the sun spews huge energy releases called solar flares, which depending on their magnitude (the weakest are “C” class and the most powerful are “X” class) can cause radio blackouts and irremediable damage to satellites. Powerful sun flares are sometimes, however, joined by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that cause geomagnetic storms on Earth. CMEs are what cause the beautiful northern and southern lights, or auroras, but they can also inflict catastrophic events. Coronal mass ejections are caused when the magnetic field in the sun’s atmosphere gets disrupted and then the plasma, the sun’s hot ionized gas, erupts and send charged particles into space.

If the geomagnetic storm caused by the CMEs is big enough, it can cause a damaging extra electrical current to flow through the grid. Some of you might remember the 1989 Quebec incident, when the whole city was blackout after the entire grid got fried, causing an estimate $2 billion Canadian in damage at the time. Besides blackouts, CMEs can also disrupt GPS signals and radio telecommunications.

Both CMEs and sun flares most often sprout from active regions around sunspots.

AR 1476, the huge sunspot complex I’ve mentioned earlier, might just be a birthplace for havoc. Another sunspot group, albeit smaller, called AR 1471, already erupted Monday evening with a M1 flare – one of the least powerful.

“With at least four dark cores larger than Earth, AR 1476 sprawls more than 100,000 km from end to end, and makes an easy target for backyard solar telescopes,” the website Spaceweather.com reported Monday.

The sun’s activity naturally lowers and increases in its 11-year cycle – towards the end of the cycle, like it’s the case currently, the sun is most active. The current cycle, known as  Solar Cycle 24, is set to peak in 2013.

Marsnow.info reports: NASA understating risks to Mars-bound lander

 

This was posted on Spaceweather.com April 30 and then removed

MARS-DIRECTED CME: A minor CME that left the sun during the late hours of April 28th is heading for Mars. En route, it will sweep past the Mars Science Lab spacecraft, which is carrying Curiosity to the Red Planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the GSFC, the cloud will reach the rover on May 4th. Fortunately, Curiosity is equipped to sense and study solar storms: video.

The video shows the true story. The MSL is carrying an instrument to measure some radiation on the surface of Mars. When NASA launched MSL into harms way amid the historic solar flare activity it submitted the space craft to never-before-experienced bombardment by super-hot, electrically charged plasma traveling in excess of a million-miles and hour. Note in this posting the CME – solar blow torch is called “the cloud.”

 

 

 Cyber threats last week

 

April 28, Softpedia – (Florida) AntiSec hackers steal 40 GB of data from Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Softpedia reported April 28 a massive 40 gigabytes worth of files were stolen by Anonymous hackers operating under the AntiSec banner from the internal networks of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) in Florida. One of the hackers that participated in the operation told Softpedia that out of the 40 gigabytes of data, around 35 gigabytes represent forensic software and other applications used by law enforcement agencies. The other 5 gigabytes are made up of reports that detail LCSO operations such as Op Inmate Intelligence Gathering and Operation Screen Savers. The files also include corporate security IPDR reports from Sprint Nextel that show the telecoms firm hands over private data to the authorities. Phone lists that reveal financial crimes, intelligence bulletins from the FBI, communication codes, and communications equipment are all contained in the data dump. Furthermore, hackers leaked the locations of U.S. Army Reserve facilities, badge numbers, 9-1-1 calls, log-in credentials, manuals, and official bulletins from the Department of Justice. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/AntiSec-Hackers-Leak-40-GB-of-Data-from-Lake-County-Sheriff-s-Office-266784.shtml

 

Information Technology Sector

44. April 30, Computerworld – (International) Down but not out: Conficker camouflages new Windows infections. Windows PCs infected with Conficker are more likely to be compromised by other malware because the worm masks secondary infections and makes those machines easier to exploit, a security expert found. That is the biggest reason why Conficker, although crippled and seemingly abandoned by its makers, remains a threat and should be eradicated, a senior technologist at Neustar and a

cybersecurity adviser to the White House said. Neustar is an information and analytics provider, and one of the corporate members of the Conficker Working Group (CWG), which has been “sinkholing” the Conficker botnet for more than 2 years. The week of April 23, Microsoft said Conficker infected, or tried to infect, 1.7 million Windows PCs in 2011’s fourth quarter. Microsoft called on users to strengthen passwords to stymie the malware. Conficker provides the cover the researcher spoke about because of two defensive tactics designed to keep it alive: the worm disables most antivirus software, including Microsoft’s Windows Defender and Security Essentials, and switches off Windows’ Automatic Updates, the service used by virtually all Windows users to keep their PCs patched. It also blocks access to security product Web sites — preventing signature updates for antivirus software — and to the Windows Update Web site. Without antivirus software, Conficker-infected systems are unlikely to detect and deflect other malware. If Automatic Updates is disabled, the machine will not receive any new security patches from Microsoft, leaving it open to attack by new threats that exploit those underlying vulnerabilities. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226697/Down_but_not_out_Conficker_camouflages_new_Windows_infections?source=rss_security&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+computerworld/s/feed/topic/17+(Computerworld+Security+News)&utm_conte 45.

 

April 30, Help Net Security – (International) Gamex trojan threatens Android users. A new Android trojan that paves the way for the download of other applications has been spotted on third-party Web sites, camouflaged as legitimate file managing, ad blocking, and performance boosting apps. According to Lookout researchers, the Gamex trojan’s functionality is split across three components. Once the downloaded app repackaged with the trojan is granted root access by the user, the malware takes advantage of this permission to install another app onto the device, which then functions as a privileged installation service. “A third component communicates with a remote server, downloads apps, and triggers their installation. Gamex also reports the installation of these applications, along with the IMEI and IMSI, to a remote server,” researchers explained. “We believe that this information is used to operate and/or report installations to a malicious affiliate app promotion network.” Source: http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=2086&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+HelpNetSecurity+(Help+Net+Security)&utm_content=Google+Reader 46.

 

April 30, Softpedia – (International) Cybercriminals control Android TigerBot via SMS. At the beginning of April, security researchers found a number of Chinese Android stores were pushing applications that masked a piece of malware called TigerBot (ANDROIDOS_TIGERBOT.EVL). Also known as Spyera, the malicious element was analyzed by Trend Micro experts. They discovered the malware was controlled by its masters via SMS or phone calls, being capable of performing a number of tasks, including call recording and GPS tracking. The list of commands accepted by TigerBot includes DEBUG, CHANGE_IAP, PROCESS_LIST_ADD, PROCESS_LIST_DELETE, ACTIVE, and DEACTIVE.

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Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Cybercriminals-Control-Android-TigerBot-Via-SMS-267066.shtml 47.

 

April 29, Computerworld – (International) Snow Leopard users most prone to Flashback infection. Of the Macs infected by the Flashback malware, nearly two-thirds are running OS X 10.6, known as Snow Leopard, a Russian antivirus company said April 27. Doctor Web, which earlier in April was the first to report the largest-ever malware attack against Apple Macs, mined data it intercepted from compromised computers to develop its findings. The company, along with other security vendors, has been “sinkholing” select command-and-control domains used by the Flashback botnet — hijacking them before the hackers could use the domains to issue orders or update attack code — to estimate the botnet’s size and disrupt its operation. April 27, Doctor Web published an analysis of communications between 95,000 Flashback-infected Macs and the sinkholed domains. Those communication attempts took place April 13. Flashback uses a critical vulnerability in Java to worm its way onto Macs. Although Apple, which continues to maintain Java for its OS X users, patched the bug in early April, it did so 7 weeks after Oracle disclosed the flaw when it shipped Java updates for Windows and Linux. Sixty-three percent of Flashback-infected machines identified themselves as running OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard, the newest version of Apple’s operating system that comes with Java. Snow Leopard accounted for the largest share of OS X in March, according to metrics company Net Applications, making it the prime target of Flashback. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226696/Snow_Leopard_users_most_prone_to_Flashback_infection?source=rss_security&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+computerworld/s/feed/topic/17+(Computerworld+Security+News)&utm_content=Google 48. April 28, Ars Technica – (International)

Backdoor that threatens power stations to be purged from control system. Mission-critical routers used to control electric substations and other critical infrastructure are being updated to remove a previously undocumented backdoor that could allow vandals to hijack the devices, manufacturer RuggedCom said April 27. The announcement by the Ontario, Canada-based company comes 2 days after Ars Technica reported the company’s entire line of devices running its Rugged Operating System contained a backdoor with an easily determined password. The backdoor, which cannot be disabled, had not been publicly acknowledged by the company until now, leaving the power utilities, military facilities, and municipal traffic departments using the industrial-strength gear vulnerable to sabotage that could affect the safety of huge populations of people. Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/

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PortMiami dredge opposition dropped after $1.4M agreement

South Florida Business Journal

Date: Wednesday, April 25, 2012, 6:21pm EDT

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Logistics & Transportation, Miami-Dade County

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Opposition to the PortMiami dredge project has been dropped, allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to receive an environmental permit and proceed with construction.

The Tropical Audubon Society, Biscayne Bay Waterkeepers and county resident Dan Kipnis agreed to withdraw their opposition to the issuance of a Florida Department of Environmental Protection    Florida Department of Environmental Protection  permit in exchange for a $1.4 million agreement, which still requires Miami-Dade County commission approval.

The permit would allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to move forward with the construction phase of the deep dredge project, which will deepen the PortMiami channel to 50 feet to accommodate larger container cargo vessels expected after the Panama Canal expansion in 2014.

The agreement would authorize $1.31 million from the seaport department to the county’s Biscayne Bay Environmental Enhancement Trust Fund, a $50,000 donation to the Tropical Audubon Society and a $50,000 donation to the Biscayne Bay Waterkeepers, according to county documents. The settlement agreement still requires approval from the county commission, which is scheduled to vote on the item on May 1.

“This is a win-win for the entire community,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, in a statement. “The agreement provides additional funding for important environmental projects, while at the same time allowing for the timely completion of the dredge project, which is critical to our efforts to grow our container cargo traffic and create thousands of new, well-paying jobs in our community.”

 

 

April 24, Softpedia

– (National) UGNazi hackers launch DDOS attacks on CIA, DOJ sites to protest CISPA.

Hackers from the UGNazi group launched attacks on the sites of the CIA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) April 24 to show they do not agree with a new anti-piracy law, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

While the site of the DOJ seemed to be restored, the one of the CIA was down for at least 8 hours.

Starting the weekend of April 21, members of the UGNazi group were attacking sites that belong to the U.S. government and organizations they consider corrupt.

Their first targets were the Web sites of New York City and the Government of the District of Columbia, which they considered to be "the heart" of the United States.

Then they moved to NASDAQ, whose public facing Web site they kept down for a few hours. The State of Washington site was attacked April 21, being kept offline for more than 4 hours.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/UGNazi-Hackers-Launch-DDOS-Attack-on-CIA-DOJ-Site-to-Protest-CISPA-266033.shtml