DHS Secretary Napolitano Announces Proposed Loan Forgiveness For Special Community Disaster Loans

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has proposed an amendment to its Special Community Disaster Loan (CDL) regulations to include loan forgiveness procedures and requirements.

The proposal includes procedures and requirements for governments who received Special Community Disaster Loans to apply for cancellation of loan obligations. The decision to proceed on this rulemaking now comes as a result of Secretary Napolitano's trip to the Gulf Coast earlier this month, and is part of a series of new initiatives put forth by the Department of Homeland Security to address the challenges facing the region.

View the 35 page PDF NPRM: Special Community Disaster Loans Program

For the complete DHS Press Release see the reference below.

NOTE: FEMA is seeking comments from state and local officials, as well as the public, on the proposed forgiveness procedures.Comments should be submitted under docket ID FEMA-2005-0051 at www.regulations.gov.Comments may also be submitted to FEMA-RULES@dhs.gov or by mail to FEMA’s Office of Chief Counsel, Room 835, 500 C Street, SW, Washington, D.C. 20472. Please note that comments submitted via mail typically experience a two-week delay.Please reference Docket ID FEMA-2005-0051 when submitting comments. Comments can be submitted for 60 days after the rule is published. More information regarding the proposed rule is available in the docket at http://www.regulations.gov

Top Taliban Leader In Pakistan Claims Attack On Washington D.C. Will Come Soon, White House A Target

Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader in Pakistan told the Associated Press by phone that:

"Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world."

The United States has placed a $5 Million bounty on Baitullah Mehsud, and has recently stepped up attacks attacks by unmanned drones inside Pakistan in the last several months.

Accorrding to the Taliban leasder in Pakistan the recent threat and attack on the police station in Pakistan is retaliation for the increased drone attacks from the United States.

Baitullah Mehsud mentioned the White House directy as one of the targets but did not mention any further specifics.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on the threat.

DHS Press Release: Conficker/Downadup Computer Worm Detection Tool

DHS Releases Conficker/Downadup Computer Worm Detection Tool

Release Date: March 30, 2009

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today the release of a DHS-developed detection tool that can be used by the federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments, and critical infrastructure owners and operators to scan their networks for the Conficker/Downadup computer worm.

The department's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) developed the tool that assists mission-critical partners in detecting if their networks are infected. The tool has been made available to federal and state partners via the Government Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (GFIRST) Portal, and to private sector partners through the IT and Communications sector Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs). Additional outreach to partners will continue in the coming days.

Department cyber experts briefed federal Chief Information Officers and Chief Information Security Officers today, as well as their equivalents in the private sector and state/local government via the ISACs and the National Infrastructure Protection Plan framework.

"While tools have existed for individual users, this is the only free tool – and the most comprehensive one – available for enterprises like federal and state government and private sector networks to determine the extent to which their systems are infected by this worm," said US-CERT Director Mischel Kwon."Our experts at US-CERT are working around the clock to increase our capabilities to address the cyber risk to our nation's critical networks and systems, both from this threat and all others."

In addition to the development of this tool, DHS is working closely with private sector and government partners to minimize any impact from the Conficker/Downadup computer worm. This worm can infect Microsoft Windows systems from thumb drives, network share drives, or directly across a corporate network if network servers are not protected by Microsoft’s MS08-067 patch.

US-CERT recommends that Windows Operating Systems users apply Microsoft security patch MS08-067 (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx) as quickly as possible to help protect themselves from the worm. This security patch, released in October 2008, is designed to protect against a vulnerability that, if exploited, could enable an attacker to remotely take control of an infected system and install additional malicious software.

Home users can apply a simple test for the presence of a Conficker/Downadup infection on their home computers. The presence of an infection may be detected if users are unable to connect to their security solution Web site or if they are unable to download free detection/removal tools.

If an infection is suspected, the system or computer should be removed from the network. In the case of home users, the computer should be unplugged from the Internet.

Instructions, support and more information on how to manually remove a Conficker/Downadup infection from a system have been published by major security vendors. Each of these vendors offers free tools that can verify the presence of a Conficker/Downadup infection and remove the worm:

Symantec:
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-011316-0247-99

Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962007
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/worms/conficker.mspx

Home users may also call Microsoft PC Safety hotline at 1-866-PCSAFETY, for assistance.

McAfee:
http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/default.asp

US-CERT encourages users to prevent a Conficker/Downadup infection by ensuring all systems have the MS08-067 patch, disabling AutoRun functionality (see http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-020A.html), and maintaining up-to-date anti-virus software.

In addition, US-CERT recommends that computer users and administrators implement the following preparedness measures to protect themselves against this vulnerability, and also from future vulnerabilities:

• Keep up-to-date on security patches and fixes for your operating system.The easiest way to do this is to set your system to receive automatic updates, which will ensure you automatically receive security updates issued by Microsoft.If your system does not allow automatic updates, we recommend that you manually install the Microsoft security patch today through Microsoft Update at http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate
• Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software and keep them up-to-date
• Enable a firewall which will help block attacks before they can get into your computer

To access the alerts for this vulnerability and for additional information on cyber security tips and practices, please visit www.us-cert.gov.

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Experimental Ebola Vaccine Used On Human For First Time

A few weeks ago on March 12th a scientist in Germany accidentally pricked her finger with a needle used to inject mice with the Ebola virus.

Within hours of the accidental exposure several of the scientist's colleagues held a trans-Atlantic telephone conference to try and find a way to save the scientists life.

Within 24 hours, an experimental vaccine — never before tried on humans — was on its way to Germany from a lab in Canada.

Though it is not 100 percent certain that the scientist was actually infected with the Ebola virus, she did receive the experimental vaccine. So far she does not have Ebola symptoms.

If the scientist is still healthy as of April 2nd she will be considered safe. However, if she does not become infected it will be uncertain if it was luck or the vaccine that saved her life.

NOTE: This story was brought to my attention by Catherine Mitchell of Prepared Citizens

Hezbollah Using Mexican Drug Routes To Access United States, Funnel Cash

Earlier this month we did a post on Mexican drug cartels that are working with terrorist groups, that post is:Connection Between Mexican Drug Cartels and Terrorists Clear.

Though this story has not made it's way into the mainstream media, reports about this going on have been around for quite some time. In fact over the last few years small stories have been reported about terrorists, middle-eastern men, and Arabs have been crossing the border.

As early as October of 2001 these reports have been slowly creeping in through various news sources. It is also unknown as far as I can tell how many were crossing the border prior to September 11, 2001 since it appears there was not real tracking of this data prior to the attack.

In 2005 a known Al-Qaeda terrorist was captured near the Mexican boarder, who was watching the movements of police, wildlife, and other people. This happened right near Fort Hancock, TX. It was confirmed that terrorists are moving into the area, learning Spanish, and changing their names to blend in with the Hispanic communities in the region.

The Al-Qaeda terrorists was only captured after he aggravated one of his neighbors who eventually turned him in to the Mexican Authorities, but not before he was already settled into the area for well over a year.

The current spike in violence in Mexico, near the border areas are in part due to the current President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón stepping up actions against the drug cartels and firing corrupt Mexican police officers.

The violence will most likely continue to rise, as the terrorist groups will likely back the drug cartels with financing and weapons further turning the area into a war zone.

Though current administration would like to have you believe the Mexican drug cartels are obtaining their weapons from U.S. citizens selling arms across the boarder, the drug cartels are increasingly using advanced weapons such as rocket launchers and grenades likely to come from sources other than the U.S.

Starting this past weekend reports of Hezbollah using the Mexican boarder to get money out of the U.S. to further fund terror operations around the world is on the rise.

Though no confirmed actions against the U.S. from Hezbollah have occurred as yet, it does present an increasingly troublesome situation. Terror operatives are inside the U.S. they are using our porous boarder with Mexico to further their cause, and as I stated in the post above, it may only be a matter of time before we see one of these terror groups take over a Mexican city or town near our border to lauch operations against the United States.