"I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," said Mike, who saw a Craigslist ad last week looking for workers for a road maintenance project in Monroe.

He said he inquired and was e-mailed back with instructions to meet near the Bank of America in Monroe at 11 a.m. Tuesday. He also was told to wear certain work clothing.

"Yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask...and, if possible, a blue shirt," he said.

Mike showed up along with about a dozen other men dressed like him, but there was no contractor and no road work to be done. He thought they had been stood up until he heard about the bank robbery and the suspect who wore the same attire.

Blogger: Dan Blum

It is no surprise for us to hear loose lips flapping in India about a capability to decrypt Blackberry and other carrier traffic.

After all, we’ve done basic threat analysis for years and it was only months ago that I was brought into a company-wide CISO meeting at a U.S. defense contractor to help them hash out their travel policy for mobile devices. Going into the meeting, I knew their policy restricted taking devices to a list of countries considered dangerous – but there was an exemption for BlackBerries.

Our research uncovered that BlackBerry is pretty secure in most respects. It has transport encryption along with optional password protection, remote kill, disk encryption, and S/MIME encryption. Viruses have not flourished on this functionally limited and closed platform. Few if any third party add on programs are required for additional protection. Nonetheless, I went into the meeting prepared to talk with the CISOs about the risks and security limitations of life on BlackBerry.

Was the BlackBerry exemption reasonable? At the time, BlackBerry transport encryption was not known to have been broken (to be fair, the article listed above still qualifies as rumor, not certainty of breakage). However, I pointed out that it is dangerous to assume well-equipped attackers like military or intelligence organizations can’t crack transport encryption. And even if they haven’t cracked the BlackBerry network and whole disk encryption features, sophisticated adversaries have other attack paths. Check out Neal Stephenson’s excellent book Cryptonomicon for a description of how a talented adversary might “see” your keystrokes and screen images through a motel room wall, for example.

If one of your employees – such as a key scientist, project manager, or executive – is targeted for surveillance and is carrying sensitive data through certain countries, one could argue that he or she had better undergo serious counter-intelligence training.  Learn to spot and shake tails, sneak into dark alleys for that BlackBerry fix. Learn to paper the closet with layers of aluminum foil and send messages in the dark. Defend that BlackBerry with encryption, long passphrases, and kung fu. But unless James Bond is running your company, I doubt this is what your executives have in mind for the next business trip!

Assuming your organization’s lower level employees are like needles in a haystack and won’t be bothered could be an exercise in wishful thinking. It is always possible that nation states are monitoring some or all of the airwaves. Not so long ago the NSA had a massive a covert surveillance program in place. Years before the government was reportedly snarfing up terabytes of emails and crunching them through a program called Carnivore. And of course, selective monitoring of people on watch lists continues on a large scale. This is just the surveillance we know about in the U.S. We suspect there’s more behind the scenes and especially in countries such as China. Even if you train your non-specifically-targeted low level employees to write and speak in search-keyword-free code, the carnivore programs of the world are pretty good at sniffing out those interesting needles – such as descriptions of your business plans, manufacturing processes, and trade secrets.

Sound paranoid? I admit that I don’t know what the probabilities of being targeted or monitored are – just that it can happen. It’s the height of arrogance to believe that a nation state can’t get your information if they’ve targeted it and you’re within their borders. And it’s dangerous to rely on security by obscurity when medium or high consequence information must be protected.

What can be done? If key personnel can't dispense with the BlackBerry (or any other email device) during international travel to those countries where information may be most at risk, they (the users) should limit communications to what they’d feel comfortable uttering over a potentially-monitored telephone call. Controlling incoming communications – messages sent by others – is a harder problem. Until data loss prevention (DLP) products become more contextually sensitive about the travel issues, it may be best not to synchronize the BlackBerry with the overseas user’s home mailbox. Instead, have the user give out a temporary address for the BlackBerry and warn senders to be discreet.

Following in the footsteps of social networking projects like Intellipedia, A-Space, an online collaboration environment for intelligence analysts, will go live on September 22. A-Space allows analysts to share information, form communities, and work together all under one environment. The analysts from sixteen intelligence agencies will have access to shared and personal workspaces, wikis, blogs, widgets, RSS feeds and other tools, as well as be able to search for content on other agencies’ data sources and even on data that allied countries might share.

Karen Sage, Cisco’s director of product management for network management, said that it’s “actually a good thing when network management is struggling, because is say that innovation is really happening at a fast rate”.

Joe Weinman, Strategic Solutions Sales VP for AT&T Global Business Services, created The 10 Laws of Cloudonomics. Weinman expands upon his laws by comparing public utility cloud services, traditional data center environments and private enterprise clouds.

I’m not making this up. HP has a new reality show coming out. “Engine Room” will be broadcast on MTV and on the Web and will feature teams of designers from around the world who understake a series of challenges with the help of HP computers. Can’t hardly wait.

It all started with the loss of a memory stick by a UK Government contractor which contained somewhere around 120,000 records, including the details of 10,000 of our nation's most serious criminals. We then heard about a compromise at global hotel chain Best Western...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:00:00 +0000 global hotel chain olympic sport summer vacation pole position data government contractor medals table memory stick nation If there were gold medals for Data Leakage... http://securityratty.com/article/71289f698108975ada823148a55bf88a http://securityratty.com/article/71289f698108975ada823148a55bf88a Jeez, I dont even want to remark on this one.
Unencrypted? Why not?

clipped from yro.slashdot.org “Clear” Air-Travel Pass Data Stolen From SFO “A laptop containing the unencrypted security data for 33,000 travelers using the Clear system was stolen at San Francisco International Airport on July 26, according to CBS5 Television. The Clear system allows travelers who register and pay a $100.00 annual fee to speed through airport security by using a smart card at special kiosks in some airports. TSA has suspended new registrations in the system, which is run by a private contractor, Verified Identity Pass, Inc., a subsidiary of GE. The laptop was apparently stolen from a locked office at SFO. The company has now decided that it might be a good idea to encrypt the data in their systems. They are in the process of notifying customers that all of their personal data, including name, address, SSi number, passport number, date of birth, etc. has been compromised.”

]]> Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:06:16 +0000 data security data personal data air-travel pass data travelers sfo system special kiosks laptop Heads up SFO travelers http://securityratty.com/article/911478f22f756b8e8513c59d7f720d18 http://securityratty.com/article/911478f22f756b8e8513c59d7f720d18 Security Breach

Date Reported:
7/17/08

Organization:
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. ("BMS")

Contractor/Consultant/Branch:
Unknown

Victims:
Current and former employees and some dependants

Number Affected:
Unknown*

*Bristol-Myers Squibb had "about 42,000 employees as of Dec. 31, the last date for which work force figures were available in regulatory filings.", Source: CNN Money

Types of Data:
"name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, marital status, gender, salary, hire date, termination date, retirement date, and, in some instances bank account information"

Breach Description:
"On June 4, 2008, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company ("BMS") learned that a back-up data tape containing BMS-related data was stolen while it was being transported for storage.  Through subsequent forensic work, it was determined that the data tape included personal information of current and former BMS employees"

Reference URL:
Pharmalot (copy of notification letter)
Pharmalot
CNNMoney

Report Credit:
Ed Silverman, Pharmalot

Response:
From the online sources cited above:

The drugmaker sent letters over the past week saying a data tape containing reams of personal information was stolen several weeks ago

On June 4, 2008, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company ("BMS") learned that a back-up data tape containing BMS-related data was stolen while it was being transported for storage.
[Evan] This statement prompted me to list the contractor as "unknown" instead of "none".  I presume that the data tape was being transported by a third-party vendor when it was stolen.  I am looking for more information on this.

Through subsequent forensic work, it was determined that the data tape included personal information of current and former BMS employees, such as name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, marital status, gender, salary, hire date, termination date, retirement date, and, in some instances, bank account information.
[Evan] Ugh, this looks like very sensitive HR and benefits data.

The names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of some employee dependents also were included on the tape.

an untold number of current and former employees - and their dependents - could be affected

BMS has initiated an investigation of this incident.

To date, BMS has no reason to believe that any of your personal information has been inappropriately accessed from the data tape by an unauthorized party, or that any identity theft, fraud or misuse of your personal information has occurred.
[Evan] I agree with most of this statement except for the "misuse" part.  There may be no evidence of misuse post stolen tape, but there may be an argument for misuse by BMS themselves.  BMS is the data custodian in this scenario, not the data owner.  If a data custodian does not care for the owner's information in a manner that is expected or communicated, does it constitute misuse?

In addition, there is no evidence that the data tape or the information contained on it was the target of the theft.
[Evan] I am interested in knowing more about who was transporting the tape and whether or not other items were taken.

As a precaution, to help you detect any possible misuse of your data, BMS has arranged for you to enroll in credit monitoring for one full year, at no cost to you.
[Evan] There is that "misuse" mention again.  One year of free credit monitoring does nothing to protect a victim against fraud that occurs after one year, supposing the victim does not renew at his/her own expense.  I wonder how many people renew on average.

If you have any questions, you may call the dedicated Privacy Help Line at 1-877-214-0689.  Our representatives will be available to assist you Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET.

the drugmaker is issuing this statement: "Bristol-Myers Squibb regrets that this incident occurred and is committed to providing appropriate assistance for affected individuals who had their personal information on the stolen data tape. We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of employee and dependent information. Maintaining the trust and confidence of our employees is paramount to Bristol-Myers Squibb."

Protecting the privacy and security of your information is extremely important to us.

In this regard, BMS wishes to reiterate that it does not have any evidence indicating that your personal information has been misused.
[Evan] Another "misuse" mention.

the company is taking appropriate remedial steps, including enhancing security protocols regarding the handling of personal information and our back-up data tapes.
[Evan] Like what? Encryption maybe?

On behalf of BMS, I apologize for any inconvenience or concern that this matter may cause for you.

Commentary:
I couldn't find any mention about encryption or whether or not police were called.  You would think that a large, well-repected company like Bristol-Myers Squibb encrypts confidential data on tape, right?

Past Breaches:
Unknown

]]> Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:26:26 +0000 tape back-up data tape data tape owner data owner data bristol-myers squibb information personal information Backup tape is stolen from Bristol-Myers Squibb