Apparently security breaches are so
common we no longer pay much attention to them. Allowing access to
your control devices over the Internet is a major security risk. In
this case, it may have been done to facilitate sales demonstrations.
Much more interesting was the theft of passwords, which
unfortunately, users tend to re-use on other systems...
U.S.
water utility reportedly hacked last week, expert says
It appears that hackers
breached the network of a company that makes SCADA (supervisory
control and data acquisition) and stole customer
usernames and passwords, said Joe Weiss, managing partner
of Applied Control Solutions. "There was damage--the SCADA
system was powered on and off, burning out a water pump," he
wrote in a brief blog
post.
The report did not
identify the water utility attacked or the SCADA software vendor
compromised, Weiss said in an interview with CNET. He declined to
say where the utility is based because the report, released by a
state terrorism information center, is marked "For Official Use
Only." However, a Department of Homeland Security
representative indicated the facility was located in Springfield,
Ill.
"It is unknown, at
this time, the number of SCADA usernames and passwords acquired from
the software company's database and if any additional SCADA systems
have been attacked as a result of this theft," he said, reading
from a report entitled "Public Water District Cyber Intrusion."
It was released November 10, two days after the water utility attack
was discovered, he said.
… "DHS and the FBI are
gathering facts surrounding the report of a water pump failure in
Springfield Ill.," DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a
statement. "At this time there is no credible corroborated data
that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat
to public safety."
Weiss disputed this statement.
"The statement is inconsistent
with the report from the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and
Intelligence Center Daily Intelligence Notes dated November 10, 2011,
titled 'Public Water District Cyber Intrusion,'" he said.
The water utility had noticed minor
glitches in the remote access [Interesting, if uninformative phrase
Bob] to the SCADA system for two to three months before it
was identified as a cyber attack, Weiss said.
I want to adapt this for the classroom!
And the highway! And Congress!!!!
"GeekWire reports that a
pending Microsoft patent for monitoring workplace behavior would do
Dwight Schrute proud. Three Microsoft inventors propose curbing
obnoxious workplace habits in an equally obnoxious fashion —
using a computer device for monitoring and analyzing workers'
interactions over video conferences, telephone, text messages and
other forms of digital communication to look for patterns of negative
and positive behavior, and assigning behavior scores to employees
based on what the system finds. Bad behavior, Microsoft explains,
might include wearing dark glasses in a video conference, wearing
unacceptable clothing to a business meeting, cutting off others
during conversation, prolonged monologues, and even how one nods
one's head in agreement, shakes one's head indicating disagreement,
and makes hand gestures."
Binary Law by Bob
The arg...
...u ments
go back
and forth
be cause
there is
no middle
HA! I bet you didn't expect to find
epic poetry in a blog!
Judge
Declares Law Governing Warrantless Cellphone Tracking
Unconstitutional
November 17, 2011 by Dissent
Julia Angwin:
In a succinct
one-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn N. Hughes of the
Southern District of Texas declared that the law authorizing the
government to obtain cellphone records without a search warrant was
unconstitutional.
“The records
would show the date, time, called number, and location of the
telephone when the call was made,” Judge Hughes wrote in the
decision, dated Nov. 11. “These data are constitutionally
protected from this intrusion.”
Read more on Wall
Street Journal.
Q: Why would a good
manager choose not to backup their data? A: A good manager wouldn't.
"Businesses are on average
backing up to tape once a month, with one alarming statistic showing
10
percent were only backing up to tape once per year, according to
a survey by Vanson Bourne. Although cloud backup solutions are
becoming more common, still the majority of companies will do their
backups in-house. Sometimes they will have dedicated IT staff to run
them, but usually it's done in-house because they have always done it
like that, and they have confidence in their own security and
safekeeping of data."
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