"Nine-Ball" Attack Has Compromised 40,000 Sites

According to SC Magazine:

The attack is called “Nine-Ball” because of the name of the final, malicious landing page, which is loaded with drive-by exploits, that unsuspecting users automatically are redirected to if they visit one of the compromised sites.

Ninetoraq.in, the exploit site, contains malicious code that looks for already patched vulnerabilities in Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) and AOL SuperBuddy, which it then attempts to exploit, Stephan Chenette, manager of security research at Websense, told SCMagazineUS.com on Wednesday.

The flaws have all been patched; some date back to 2006, Chenette said. But, the Reader and QuickTime vulnerabilities are newer, making it less likely that users are patched for them. If the maliciouscode finds an unpatched vulnerability to exploit, it either drops a malicious PDF file or a trojan designed to steal user information, Chanette said.

All of the exploits currently have low detection rates, he added.

For Full Story:

"Nine-Ball" mass injection attack compromised 40,000 sites

Kern County 911 Emergency Communications Center, Still Under Fire

A follow up investigation finds that the Kern County Emergency Communication Center responsible for answering calls to the County 911 system is still falling short of federal guidelines.

The County answers about 1,400 calls per day but during the investigation it was found that 581 calls took one to two minutes to be answered far longer than the 10 seconds required under federal guidelines.

While the County is taking steps to address the staffing issue they attribute to the problem, it looks as if the County Sheriffs Department may not even recognize that a problem exists.

Consider these statements made buy RoseMary Wahl, the Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy:

"Those are federal guidelines. We're not breaking any laws or anything by not getting to them in 10 seconds though we do strive for those."

"We're doing a good job. We're not getting a lot of complaints so that tells me we're responding to the communities needs."

However the grand jury committee doesn't feel the same. It said the Communication Center has "A perceived unwillingness to improve" its problems which could "affect officer and public safety."

LA County Installs Reverse 911/Emergency Notification System

LA County launched an emergency alert notification system on Thursday to notify residents during a disaster.

The system is already connected to all land-line phones in the county but you can add your cellphone and email by going to alert.lacounty.gov.

Here is some info from that site:

Los Angeles County has implemented an emergency mass notification system that will be used to contact County residents and businesses via recorded phone messages, text messages or e-mail messages in case of emergency. The system, called Alert LA County, will be used by the County’s Emergency Operations Center to notify residents and businesses of emergencies or critical situations and provide information regarding necessary actions, such as evacuations. The system utilizes the telephone companies’ 911 database and is able to contact land-line telephone numbers, whether listed or unlisted. If the call is picked up by an answering machine, the system will leave a recorded message. If the number called is busy or does not answer, the system will redial the number in an attempt to deliver the message. The system is also TTY/TDD compatible.

Sheriff’s officials cautioned that while the new system is effective, people should not wait for a call to leave their home during a disaster. If you think you’re in danger, get out.

Pakistans President Announces Nukes May Fall Into Terrorist Hands

I have been reporting on Disaster Preparedness Blog for a while about the possibility of nukes falling into the hands of radical extremists in Pakistan such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Today an Indian Newspaper is reporting that the President of Pakistan is stating that while the countries nuclear arsenal is in safe hands, the threat of them falling onto extremist hands is very real.

The Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari is also calling on the west for help in securing the democracy in Pakistan further stating that if democracy fails in their country, the nukes will surely fall into the possession of radicals.

To see my past stories on this please refer to these posts

Taliban May Already Hold Some Key Nuke Sites In Pakistan

Pakistain Near Collapse, Nukes Will Fall Into Terrorist Hands

For more on this story directly please refer to the reference blow.

Malware On ATMs Allowing Criminals To Steal Data and Cash

Approximately 20 ATMs have been found in Europe that have malware on them allowing thieves to steal cash as well as acount data and PINS from account holders.

The ATMs are located mostly in Russia and the Ukraine however their seems to be indications that the Unites States may have compromised ATMS as well.

Since the malware needs to be directly installed onto the ATM an insider is suspected but whether that insider works at a bank, an ATM vendor, a company that services the machines or someone close to an insider is unknown at this time.

The discovery was made by SpiderLabs at Trustwave.

The ATMs were running the Windows XP Operating System and had an executable on them that was masquerading as a legitimate Windows protected storage service, he said. The malware looks at all the data being processed by the ATM and records account information that is stored on the magnetic stripes on cards inserted into the machine and encrypted PIN blocks that are generated when someone types in their personal identification number.

Even though PINs are encrypted, the criminals could potentially intercept the encryption keys exchanged with the bank and use them to decrypt the PINs or even use other methods to decrypt the keys once they have the information.

For more on this story please refer to the reference below.