Security News for the Week Ending November 19, 2021

Old Scams Never Die, They Just Get a Fresh Coat of Paint

Scammers have been posing, according to a warning by DHS, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents in San Antonio. The scammers call the mark, pretending to be HSI and tell them there is a problem with their passport and if they just pay the scammer/HSI agent some money, the problem will go away. They threaten that they will be arrested if they don’t pay. The victim’s passport, they say, was involved in a crime and police will be dispatched to their house to arrest them. Marks can call the ICE tip line at 866-347-2423 if they are able to “mark the mark”, so to speak. This type of scam is decades old; the only things that change are the targets and the agency who the scammers claim to represent, although DHS is a popular one. Credit: Infosecurity

Hackers Use Real FBI Email Account to Send Spam Cyberattack Spam

I don’t think this qualifies as a hack. Instead it is really poor software design. The FBI runs a portal for law enforcement, but until Saturday anyone could sign up for an account. The prankster sent out at least 100,000 emails and the FBI was flooded with calls. For admins, it was hard to disregard the alert since it came from the real FBI email server and was signed with DMARC. A bit of a black eye for the FBI and they only said that they were working on fixing the hole. Their temporary fix was to shut the system down. Probably a good idea. The hacker talked to Brian Krebs and explained what he did and why. To point out crappy security. Credit: Brian Krebs

Election Conspiracy Theory Lives On

For those of us in Colorado, there is a full blown election conspiracy fight still going on. Tina Peters, the election official in Mesa county, the reddest part of the state, is in the middle of a fight for her political life. A Republican, she was booted out of her role as election chief by Jena Griswold, a Democrat and the state’s chief election official. Griswold appointed another Republican to oversee Mesa County’s elections. So far, the courts have sided with the state. Peters did things like turn off the cameras in the secure counting area and made covert copies of the disk drives from the counting machines Somehow, copies of all of her voting system passwords and a copy of the rogue disk drive image were posted on the Internet for anyone to download. She says that she doesn’t know how that happened. Her legal expenses are being paid for by the MyPillowMan. Check out the story here.

CISA About to Name Members of New Advisory and Investigation Panels

DHS’ CISA officially created the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee this month. It was authorized in the 2021 NDAA. The committee is limited to 35 people and must include one each from 12 key industries including finance, tech, communications and healthcare. The remaining slots will be appointed by CISA’s director. The Cyber Safety Board was created by executive order this year and will operate similar to the way the NTSB examines transportation accidents. It will include both Govies and private sector people and will convene when needed. Credit: The Record

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