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• According to internal government documents obtained by ABC News, thousands of foreign student pilots who do not have the proper visas have been able to enroll in U.S. flight schools and obtain pilot licenses. Under laws passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, American flight schools are only supposed to provide pilot training to foreign students who have been given a background check by the Transportation Security Administration and have a specific type of visa. (See item 15)
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Milwaukee police are investigating the apparently intentional disruption of Milorganite fertilizer production this week at the Jones Island sewage treatment plant in Wisconsin. Six of 12 sewage sludge dryers used in Milorganite production had to be shut down Tuesday morning after a manually operated valve for a cold water pipe to a dryer had been opened. (See item 32)
29. February 27, InfoWorld – (National) eBay Red Team confab aims to help security officers. eBay is trying to help CISOs (chief information security officers) build a common front in the war against cybercrime. The company played host to chief security officers and a handful of technology vendors this week, holding its annual Red Team security conference at the company's San Jose, California, campus, billing it as a networking opportunity for security professionals where they could discuss areas of common concern. "What we were trying to do was to get all the CISOs together," said eBay's CISO. "We're dealing with similar problems, almost all of us." While companies using Internet technology may be facing a common set of problems, they have not always shared information with their peers. That is because if news of a hacked server or a data breach is leaked to the press, it can become a public-relations disaster for the company involved. At this week's conference, CISOs discussed common issues, including how they are pursuing cross-border investigations and what they think of the security products they were using. The second-ever Red Team conference ran Monday and Tuesday. The first day of the conference focused on CISO issues, while on day two, the discussion was opened up to security vendors such as iSight Partners and Cisco, which gave presentations on the state of security.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20080227/tc_infoworld/95624_1
30. February 27, Computerworld – (International) Finjan finds illegal database with more than 8,700 stolen FTP credentials. A fresh discovery by security vendor Finjan provides yet another example of how easy it is becoming for almost anyone to find the tools needed to break into, infect, or steal data from corporate Web sites. The vendor announced Wednesday that it has uncovered an illegal database containing more than 8,700 stolen FTP server credentials including user name, password, and server addresses. Anyone can purchase those credentials and use them to launch malicious attacks against the compromised systems. The stolen credentials belong to companies from around the world and include more than 2,500 North American companies, some of whose Web sites are among the world's top 100 domains, according to Finjan's CTO. The FTP credentials would allow someone with malicious intent to break into and upload malware to a compromised server with a click or two, he said. "You could pick any server you wanted in the list, pay for it," and launch an attack with very little effort. A trading interface on the server hosting the illegal database allows purchasers to buy FTP server credentials based on the country in which the servers are located, or even by the Google ranking of the Web sites, he said. It also appears designed to give criminals looking to resell FTP credentials a better basis for pricing the stolen data, he said.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/02/27/Finjan-finds-illegal-database-with-stolen-FTP-credentials_1.html
31. February 28, CNET News – (International) In Pakistan vs. YouTube, it's not all about technology. The flap earlier this week in which Pakistan Telecom knocked YouTube.com off the Internet for two hours was unusual. It was not like when a court in Turkey blocked access to YouTube from within the country, or when China restricts Western news sites. Those were country-specific and intentional. The outage on Sunday was global and, as far as we know, unintentional. So what is to stop another Internet service provider -- especially a government-owned one -- from intentionally trying this trick? The short answer is that while the Internet is anarchic, it is not that anarchic. In fact, the way network providers handle Internet routing is very specific and carefully defined in a series of standards. Network providers -- called autonomous systems, or Ass -- are assigned unique ID numbers that are compiled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. While ICANN holds the master list of AS numbers, they are actually assigned by allocating large blocks of 1,000 or so at a time to regional address registries. And when one network provider misbehaves and broadcasts a false claim to be the proper destination for certain Internet addresses -- as Pakistan Telecom (AS 17557) did this week -- it is easy enough to figure out what is going on. The Internet may be run by computers, but it is managed by people who share tips and alert each other to potential network problems. Some of these discussions take place on public mailing lists; some occur in more private settings. Many of these network operators know each other personally through groups like NANOG, AfNOG, and SANOG. Human intervention, manual overrides, and personal relationships based on inperson meetings are not perfect: ideally, false broadcasts could be prevented completely through encryption-outfitted mechanisms like Secure BGP. But these less-formal relationships have worked remarkably well, and are (for now at least) the first line of defense against someone learning the lessons from Pakistan Telecom and attempting to do far more damage than merely taking out YouTube for a few hours.
Source: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9880244-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
• According to CNN, Power was restored Tuesday for most of Florida after a failed switch and fire at an electrical substation outside Miami triggered widespread blackouts across the state. The president of Florida Power & Light (FPL) said a disconnect switch failed at 1:08 p.m. at the automated substation west of Miami, and a piece of equipment that controls voltage caught fire about the same time. (See item 1)
• The Associated Press reports LAX will be getting the equivalent of street lights to prevent potential accidents. The system — called runway status lights — will rely on radar technology and red lights on the pavement at one of Los Angeles International Airport's four runways and at various taxiways to tell pilots when it is safe to cross them or take off. (See item 12)
28. February 27, The Register – (National) InfoJack Trojan burrows into Windows CE machines. Hackers have created a Trojan capable of infecting mobile devices running Windows CE. The InfoJack Trojan spreads by either tricking mobile users into installing seemingly legitimate application installation files or if punters inadvertently use an infected memory card on vulnerable devices. The malware has been spotted circulating in China. InfoJack disables Windows Mobile application installation security. It sends the infected device's serial number, operating system, and other information to the author of the Trojan (a factor that explains the name of the malware). Infected devices are left vulnerable to the injection of further malware strains by allowing unsigned applications to be installed without a warning. Once infected, the homepage on a device's browser is changed. The malware contains a number of features designed to frustrate clean-up efforts by copying itself back onto disk to protect itself from deletion. Internet security firm McAfee warns that the Trojan has been distributed with Google Maps, applications for stock trading, and games. It adds that the Trojan's website is no longer reachable, due in part to an investigation by Chinese law enforcement officials. InfoJack is not unprecedented. A very small number of PocketPC viruses have been created over the last four or five years and, in at least one case, a Trojan capable of infecting Windows CE has been seen in the lab. InfoJack differs from its predecessors because it has been spotted in circulation, albeit to a modest extent. The spread of the malware provoked security clearing house US CERT to issue an alert: http://www.uscert.gov/current/index.html#microsoft_wince_trojan.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/27/infojack_trojan/
29. February 27, BBC News – (International) Details emerge on YouTube block. Pakistan has rejected claims that it was responsible for blocking global access to the YouTube video clip site. YouTube was hard to reach this week following action by Pakistan to block access inside its borders for its hosting of a "blasphemous" video clip. Analysis suggests the block was taken up by net hardware that routes data effectively cutting off the site. But a spokeswoman for Pakistan's telecoms authority said the problem was caused by a "malfunction" elsewhere. The Peshawar office of the PTA issued a blocking order for YouTube last week in a bid to block access to a video clip the Pakistani government regarded as "very blasphemous." Analysis by net monitoring firm Renesys shows that the problems getting through to YouTube began as a result of the action taken by Pakistan Telecom to implement the block. Essentially, Pakistan Telecom took over some of the net addresses assigned to YouTube. Crucially the path it offered to this group of addresses was faster than the usual one used by the hardware, or routers, that speed traffic around the internet. Pakistan Telecom let this address change propagate to the routers of one of its partners – PCCW. Routers are constantly in search of faster ways to get the data passing through them to its destination so news about this faster path started propagating across many of the net's routers. However, because Pakistan Telecom was stopping the traffic reaching YouTube all the data reached a dead end. "While it is hard to describe exactly how widely this hijacked prefix was seen, we estimate that it was seen by a bit more than two-thirds of the internet," said a Renesys company blog.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7266600.stm
30. February 26, Computerworld – (National) 'Cold Boot' encryption hack unlikely, says Microsoft. Users can keep thieves from stealing encrypted data by changing some settings in Windows, a Microsoft Corp. product manager said as he downplayed the threat posed by new research that shows how attackers can inspect a "ghost" of computer memory. A senior product manager for Windows Vista security reacted Friday to reports last week about a new low-tech technique that could be used to lift the encryption key used by Vista's BitLocker or Mac OS X's FileVault. Once an attacker has the key, of course, he could easily access the data locked away on an encrypted drive. The method – dubbed "Cold Boot" because criminals can boost their chances by cooling down the computer's memory with compressed gas or even liquid nitrogen –
relies on the fact that data does not disappear instantly when a system is turned off or enters "sleep" mode. Instead, the bits stored in memory chips decay slowly, relatively speaking. Cooling down memory to -58 degrees Fahrenheit (-50 degrees Celsius) would give attackers as long as 10 minutes to examine the contents of memory, said the researchers from Princeton University, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Wind River Systems Inc. And when they pushed the envelope and submersed the memory in liquid nitrogen to bring the temperature down to -310 degrees Fahrenheit (-190 degrees Celsius), researchers saw just 0.17 percent data decay after an hour. But the Vista security blog contended that such a risk is unlikely, as an attacker would need physical access to a machine in "sleep" mode, rather than in "hibernate" mode or powered off. But even as the Vista security blog downplayed the chance of an attack, it also spelled out ways users of BitLocker – the full-disk encryption feature included in Vista Ultimate and Vista Enterprise – could protect their laptops from a Cold Boot.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9064899&intsrc=hm_list
31. February 26, CNET News.com – (National) Security experts warn of potential malicious AIR code. On Monday, Adobe Systems rolled out its new Web 2.0 development tool, Adobe Integrated Runtime, or AIR. Following its release were some concerns from the security community. AIR, formerly Adobe Apollo, is a runtime environment that allows developers use HTML, Flash, AJAX, Flex, and other Web 2.0 tools to create desktop applications. One such application built using Adobe AIR comes from Nickelodeon Online. But some security experts are concerned about local file access by AIR applications. Recently, Firefox experienced a vulnerability that could have allowed remote attackers to access a targeted file system. To mitigate this, Adobe says it implemented a sandboxing environment, however, Adobe's documentation suggests that the sandboxes are less secure than a Web browser's sandbox. Additionally, Adobe says that AIR applications need to be digitally signed, however, these certificates can be self-signed. And many users will ignore the warnings and run untrusted applications. Finally, there is the potential for Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and local link injection. While these threats are not limited to Adobe AIR, developers could gain a false sense of security by relying only on AIR's weaker sandbox protection. Adobe has also provided the following: an informative article titled "Introduction to AIR security" and a white paper; "AIR Security" (PDF). But the Sans Internet Storm Center site, notes that "many developers will be unaware of Adobe AIR security best practices or will knowingly take shortcuts that expose end users to attacks."
http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9879587-57.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
• According to CBS, a widespread power outage hit about 1 p.m. Tuesday, knocking out electricity for businesses, homes and traffic lights throughout south Florida. The outage apparently was caused by a blown transformer, a Florida Power & Light (FPL) spokesperson said. (See item 1)
• The Associated Press reports police in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, fired tear gas at Bosnian Serb rioters Tuesday to prevent them from storming the building of the U.S. Consulate after protests against Kosovo's independence. A smaller group split away from the almost 10,000 peaceful protesters in Banja Luka and headed toward the U.S. Consulate, breaking shop windows along the way and throwing stones at police. (See item 30)
33. February 26, IDG News Service – (International) YouTube outage underscores big Internet problem. Sunday's inadvertent disruption of Google's YouTube video service underscores a flaw in the Internet's design that could some day lead to a serious security problem, according to networking experts. The issue lies in the way Internet Service Providers (ISPs) share Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing information. BGP is the standard protocol used by routers to find computers on the Internet, but there is a lot of BGP routing data available. To simplify things, ISPs share this kind of information among each other. And that can cause problems when one ISP shares bad data with the rest of the Internet. That is what happened with YouTube this weekend, according to sources familiar with the situation. BGP data intended to block access to YouTube within Pakistan was accidentally broadcast to other service providers, causing a widespread YouTube outage. The chain of events that led to YouTube's partial blackout was kicked off Friday when the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered the country's ISPs to block access to YouTube because of an alleged anti-Islamic video that was hosted on the site. ISPs in Pakistan were able to block YouTube by creating BGP data that redirected routers looking for YouTube.com's servers to nonexistent network destinations. But that data was accidentally shared with Hong Kong's PCCW, who in turn shared it with other ISPs throughout the Internet. Because Pakistan's BGP traffic was offering very precise routes to what it claimed were YouTube's Internet servers, routers took it to be more accurate than YouTube's own information about itself. Larger service providers typically validate BGP data from their customers to make sure that the routing information is accurate, but in this case, PCCW apparently did not do that, according to a researcher. This kind of accidental denial of service attack has happened before. By intentionally propagating bad BGP data, an attacker could knock a Web site off the Internet or even redirect visitor's traffic to a malicious server, security experts said.
Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022608-youtube-outageunderscores-big-internet.html?fsrc=rss-security
34. February 26, TechWorld.com – (National) 'Critical' Linux kernel bugs discovered. Security researchers have uncovered three "critical" security flaws in a version of the Linux kernel used by a large number of popular distributions. The bugs allow unauthorized users to read or write to kernel memory locations or to access certain resources in certain servers, according to a SecurityFocus advisory. They could be exploited by malicious local users to cause denial-of-service attacks, disclose potentially sensitive information or gain "root" privileges, the group said. The bug affects all versions of the Linux kernel up to Version 2.6.24.1, which is patched. Distributions such as Ubuntu, TurboLinux, SUSE, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian and others are affected. Researchers advised administrators to update their kernels immediately. Last month, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security bug-fixing scheme uncovered an average of one security glitch per 1,000 lines of code in 180 widely used open-source software projects.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9064684&source=rss_topic17
35. February 26, Associated Press – (International) Group with Google and others building cross-Pacific broadband cable. A group of six international companies, including Google, is building a $300-million underwater fibre optic cable linking the United States and Japan. The trans-Pacific 10,000-kilometre broadband cable system called Unity will respond to the expected growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States, the companies said in a statement Monday. A signing ceremony was held Feb. 23, they said. Besides U.S. Internet search company Google Inc., the consortium -- also named Unity -- includes Bharti Airtel Limited, India's leading integrated telecom services provider and Japanese telecommunications company KDDI Corp. The others are Malaysian Internet company Global Transit; Pacnet, a telecom company headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore and SingTel, a leading Asian communications and mobile company. NEC Corp. and Tyco Telecommunications are suppliers for the project, set to be up and running in the first quarter of 2010. Construction begins immediately, Unity said. The cable will connect Chikura, near Tokyo, with Los Angeles and other U.S. West Coast points and the system connects to other Asian cable systems via Chikura, the companies said.
Source: http://www.mytelus.com/ncp_news/article.en.do?pn=tech&articleID=2877324
36. February 25, Reuters – (National) FCC says will act on Web neutrality if needed. The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Monday he is "ready, willing and able" to stop broadband providers that unreasonably interfere with subscribers' access to Internet content. The comment by the FCC chairman came at the start of a day-long FCC hearing centering on allegations that some broadband providers such as telecommunications and cable companies have been improperly blocking or hindering some content. The dispute over so-called "network neutrality" pits open- Internet advocates against some service providers such as Comcast Corp, who say they need to take reasonable steps to manage traffic on their networks. The FCC chair acknowledged that broadband network operators have a legitimate need to manage the data flowing over their networks. But he said that "does not mean that they can arbitrarily block access to particular applications or services." The hearing, which included testimony from officials with Comcast and Verizon, is aimed at determining what network management techniques are reasonable.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080225/wr_nm/internet_fcc_dc
Posted by BobJ at 9:34 PM No comments:
• According to the Associated Press, Two United Airlines planes are being inspected after their wings touched at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Officials say there are no reports of injuries. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority says a Boeing 737 and a smaller Embraer aircraft were preparing for departure Sunday evening when their wings touched. (See item 10)
• The Washington Post reports the number of U.S. Park Police officers has dropped to a 20-year low, with widespread vacancies in senior ranks, leaving the agency strapped, despite heightened concern about protecting the nation's landmarks from terrorism, according to officers and a watchdog group. (See item 30)
24. February 25, IDG News Service – (International) YouTube blames Pakistani ISP for global site outage. Many users around the world could not access the YouTube site for about two hours on Sunday. The company blamed the outage on erroneous routing information introduced by a Pakistani Internet service provider. Pakistani authorities ordered ISPs there to block the site on Friday. Traffic to YouTube was misrouted for around two hours, rendering the site inaccessible for many users around the world, YouTube said on Monday. "We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan," the company said, adding that it is still investigating the problem to prevent it from happening again. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered the country's ISPs to block users access to YouTube on Friday because of an inflammatory anti-Islamic video on the site, a representative of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers said in a telephone interview on Monday. If the video is provocative, then it is better it is removed, rather than provoke unrest in Pakistan, he said, adding that he did not know the contents of the video. Access to YouTube is still blocked in Pakistan while the ISPs work with the PTA to narrow its order to block a single URL (Uniform Resource Locator) pointing to the video, he said. He expects the PTA to make an order to that effect later on Monday. Source: http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/02/25/YouTube-blames-Pakistani-ISP-for-global-site-outage_1.html
25. February 24, Computerworld – (National) Critical VMware bug lets attackers zap 'real' Windows. A critical vulnerability in VMware Inc.'s virtualization software for Windows lets attackers escape the "guest" operating system and modify or add files to the underlying "host" operating system, the company has acknowledged. As of Sunday, there was no patch available for the flaw, which affects VMware's Windows client virtualization programs, including Workstation, Player and ACE. The company's virtual
machine software for Windows servers and for Mac- and Linux-based hosts are not at risk. The bug was reported by Core Security Technologies, makers of the penetration-testing framework CORE IMPACT, said VMware in a security alert issued last Friday. "Exploitation of this vulnerability allows attackers to break out of an isolated guest system to compromise the underlying host system that controls it," claimed Core Security. According to VMware, the bug is in the shared-folder feature of its Windows client-based virtualization software. Shared folders let users access certain files – typically documents and other application-generated files – from the host operating system and any virtual machine on that physical system. "On Windows hosts, if you have configured a VMware host-to-guest shared folder, it is possible for a program running in the guest to gain access to the host's complete file system and create or modify executable files in sensitive locations," confirmed VMware. VMware has not posted a fix, but it instead told users to disable shared folders.
Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9064319&source=rss_topic17
26. February 23, Computerworld – (National) Hackers ramp up Facebook, MySpace attacks. Hackers are actively exploiting an Internet Explorer plug-in that's widely used by Facebook Inc. and MySpace.com members with a multi-attack kit, a security company warned Friday. The exploit directed at Aurigma Inc.'s Image Uploader, an ActiveX control used by Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites to allow members to upload photos to their profiles, is just one of five in a new hacker tool kit being used by several Chinese attack sites, said Symantec Corp. Attacks begin when users receive spam or an instant message with an embedded link, said the Symantec analyst who authored the advisory. The link takes users to a bogus MySpace log-in page, which tries to steal members' credentials as it also silently probes the their computers for vulnerabilities in Uploader, Apple Inc.'s QuickTime, Windows and Yahoo Music Jukebox. Although the Windows and QuickTime bugs were patched eight and 13 months ago, respectively, the Uploader and Yahoo vulnerabilities were made public and fixed only within the past few weeks. The Symnatec analyst noted the hackers' fast reaction times. "[This demonstrates] how quickly attackers are leveraging new vulnerabilities," he said. "It is unlikely that attackers will stop trying to leverage this vulnerability any time soon." Symantec urged users to update the Image Uploader ActiveX control to Version 4.5.57.1.
Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9064298&taxonomyId=17&intsrc=kc_top
27. February 22, Techworld.com – (National) Hackers turn Google into vulnerability scanner. The hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) this week released a tool that turns Google into an automated vulnerability scanner, scouring Web sites for sensitive information such as passwords or server vulnerabilities. CDC first achieved notoriety 10 years ago with its backdoor Back Orifice, which demonstrated in a highly public way just how easy it was to take unauthorized control of a Windows PC. The new tool, called Goolag Scan, is equally provocative, making it easy for unskilled users to track down vulnerabilities and sensitive information on specific Web sites or broad Web domains. This capability should serve as a wake-up call for system administrators to run the tool on their own sites before attackers get around to it, according to CDC. "We've seen some pretty scary holes through random tests with the scanner in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. If I were a government, a large corporation, or anyone with a large website, I'd be downloading this beast and aiming it at my site yesterday," said a CDC representative. The tool is a stand-alone Windows .Net application, licensed under the open source GNU General Public License, which provides about 1,500 customized searches under categories such as "vulnerable servers," "sensitive online shopping information," and "files containing juicy information."
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/02/22/Hackers-turn-Google-into-vulnerability-scanner_1.html
28. February 24, IDG News Service – (National) Wireless broadband test continues. A wireless broadband device tested by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for interference with television and wireless microphone signals has not failed, as a broadcasting group claimed last week, members of the White Spaces Coalition say. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) on February 11 said a so-called prototype device submitted by Microsoft lost power during tests being run by the FCC. The power failure comes after another white spaces device malfunctioned in tests run by the FCC last year. But a tech advisor to the White Spaces Coalition and a former chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology said that while the devices power supply failed after many hours of continuous testing, it did not interfere with television signals due to the power failure. The White Spaces Coalition, including Microsoft, Philips, Dell and Google, is asking the FCC to allow wireless devices to operate in the so-called white spaces of the television spectrum, space allocated for television signals but vacant.The coalition wants the white spaces opened up to give consumers more wireless broadband options, and the white spaces devices would be targeted at longer-range broadband than traditional Wi-Fi. If the FCC approves the devices this year, commercial white spaces wireless devices could be available as soon as late 2009. The FCC's in-house testing of four devices will continue for a couple more weeks, then the agency will conduct field tests for up to eight weeks. A second white spaces device has experienced no power failure problems, said the coalition's advisor.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080224/tc_pcworld/142762
29. February 22, Telecom Asia – (International) Cable cuts raise security questions. The
security of the international submarine cable networks has been called into question by the severe disruptions caused by the recent series of cable cuts in the Mediterranean Sea. Those disruptions affected internet and phone services between Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. While services on the four broken undersea cables was restored by February 10, analysts suggest that the successive damage of these cables highlights the increased importance of reliability in the world's undersea cable networks, which carry over 95 percent of the world's international internet and telephone traffic. For years cable owners have been working hard to minimize accidental damage with different methods, such as making cable routes available to those that need to know (such as fishermen, navies and research vessels) and deliberately avoiding placing cables in high risk areas. Despite this, there is an unspoken assumption that the networks are safe from deliberate human sabotage. The recent spate of cable failures, however, has called this assumption into question, said a senior analyst at Ovum RHK. Conspiracy theories have gained ground quickly in cyberspace, despite cable owners' claims that the cables were severed by ship anchors. The Ovum RHK analyst said while there could be several cause for the outages, there is the possibility of human attack, given the geographic position and the fact that undersea cables are a ripe target for those with an interest in wreaking havoc on international communications, whatever their motivation. "If ports, railways, gas pipelines and other types of networks are being secured against possible sabotage, we must similarly increase the security of undersea optical highways," the analyst insisted. "Guaranteeing reliability is impossible, but an improvement on current hands-off approach is long overdue." Source: http://www.telecomasia.net/article.php?type=article&id_article=7336
• According to the North Platte Bulletin, there is a train derailment accident somewhere in the U.S. every five hours, according to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). There were 1,696 derailments nationwide from all railroad companies, a reduction of 14 percent from 1,982 derailments in 2006. There were 1,722 hazmat releases nationally from United Pacific (UP) and 215 hazmat cars damaged or derailed. (See item 13)
• BBC reports that several hundred protesters attacked the U.S. and other embassies on February 23 in Serbia's capital in anger at Western support for Kosovo's independence. The UN Security Council condemned the attacks. The violence followed a peaceful rally by at least 150,000 people in the city. Later about 1,000 protesters smashed their way into the U.S. embassy, throwing flares through the window while others scaled walls to rip down the US flag. (See item 23)
27. February 22, Internet News – (International) Yo quiero antivirus. Malware goes multilingual. Cybercriminals are turning their targets on the growing markets around the world, creating localized content in native languages or targeting specific interests of that nation. That is the main takeaway from McAfee Avert Labs global malware trends Sage report, called "One Internet, Many Worlds." For the longest time, Americans and English-speakers were the targets, but the crooks are going global. The growth of emerging markets like BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) has served to make them targets as well. "Two years ago, we couldn't have had this conversation," a security research and communications manager for McAfee's Avert Labs, told InternetNews.com. "Most malware and spam was 95 to 98 percent English, directed at people who speak English. Now international malware is six to seven percent of the total instead of one to two percent, and it's growing." With 23 languages in the European Union alone, McAfee's researchers found that cybercriminals are either hiring locally in different nations or swapping code written in different languages so they can target specific countries. The rise in international malware is just a logical follow on to the growth in international markets. The problem is only growing. At the start of the year, McAfee identified around 528 new pieces of malware per day. By the end of 2008, it expects to see 750 new pieces per day.
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3729626/Yo+Quiero+Antivirus+Malware+Goes+Multilingual.htm
28. February 21, Electronic Frontier Foundation – (National) Research team finds security flaw in popular disk encryption technologies. A team including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Princeton University, and other researchers have found a major security flaw in several popular disk encryption technologies that leaves encrypted data vulnerable to attack and exposure. An EFF Staff Technologist and a member of the research team said "This new class of vulnerabilities shows it is not a sure thing. Whether your laptop is stolen, or you simply lose track of it for a few minutes at airport security, the information inside can still be read by a clever attacker." The researchers cracked several widely used disk encryption technologies, including Microsoft's BitLocker, Apple's FileVault, TrueCrypt, and dm-crypt. These "secure" disk encryption systems are supposed to protect sensitive information if a computer is stolen or otherwise accessed. However, in a paper and video published on the Internet on Thursday, the researchers show that data is vulnerable because encryption keys and passwords stored in a computer's temporary memory – or RAM – do not disappear immediately after losing power. Laptops are particularly vulnerable to this attack, especially when they are turned on but locked, or in a "sleep" or "hibernation" mode entered when the laptop's cover is shut. Even though the machines require a password to unlock the screen, the encryption keys are already located in the RAM, which provides an opportunity for attackers with malicious intent. The research released Thursday shows that these attacks are likely to be effective against many other disk encryption systems because these technologies have many architectural features in common. Servers with encrypted hard drives are also vulnerable. The researchers have submitted the paper for publication and it is currently undergoing review.
Source: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/02/21-0
29. February 21, TechWorld.com – (National) Researchers figure out how to crack GSM phone security. Two enterprising researchers claim to have figured out a way to eavesdrop on calls made using GSM mobile phones, cracking open its much-vaunted encryption. According to the two men who presented the technique at the Black Hat security conference in Washington this week, GSM calls can now be recorded over long distances and cracked open in half an hour using only $1,000 worth of field programmable gate array-aided computer equipment and a frequency scanner. Although GSM's 64-bit A5 stream cipher has been theoretically vulnerable for some time, this is the first time anyone has demonstrated a way of doing it without investing in expensive, specialized equipment and without it taking years. According to one of the men, spend $100,000 on hardware and the crack can be done in only 30 seconds using massively parallel processing technology. His company, Pico Computing Inc., is now developing the fast version to sell to agencies such as law enforcement, but plans to give away the slower version for free. GSM is used all over the world by mobile phone companies, and is used in the U.S. by several networks, most notably AT&T and T-Mobile. It is considered to be secure enough that even criminals use it, simply cycling phones to avoid the theoretical risk of being tracked.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=mobile_and_wireless&articleId=9063899&taxonomyId=15&intsrc=kc_top
• According to the Reuters, Radioactive caesium chloride used in medical and research equipment can be used as a deadly ingredient in a "dirty bomb," and U.S. leaders should try to curb its use, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) said on Wednesday in a report commissioned by Congress. (See item 6)
• ABC Action News Tampa reports a Clearwater man trying to board a Southwest Airlines flight was arrested over the weekend after airport police found a box-cutter knife hidden inside a hollowed out book, according to airport officials. The man was attempting to go through a security checkpoint inside Concourse C Sunday around 7:30 am when a TSA screener saw the knife inside his backpack, according to his arrest report. (See item 14)
28. February 21, IDG News Service – (International) McAfee: Virus writers going local. Over the past two years, virus writers have increasingly targeted their malicious programs to users in different regions of the globe, creating programs that are specially designed to infect users in countries like Japan, Brazil, China, or Germany. The "taunting Trojan," which goes after users of the Winny file-sharing program is an example of this phenomenon. Winny is file-sharing software that is incredibly popular in Japan, but virtually unknown outside of the region. Still, it has been the target of several malware programs, according to a security research and communications manager for McAfee Avert Labs. Previously, attackers would write programs that would affect the largest possible number of users, but that is no longer necessarily the case, he said. "What we've noticed over the last couple of years is that a growing amount of malware is localized." McAfee believes that there are a few reasons behind this shift. For one thing, writers no longer want the worldwide attention and law enforcement action that was garnered by outbreaks such as Sasser and Netsky. And with users becoming more wary, hackers have to be crafty with their attacks – creating more targeted malware that victims are unlikely to have seen before. Another factor is that criminals are increasingly targeting their attacks to regions that have weak cybercrime enforcement, McAfee believes.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9063739&taxonomyId=17&intsrc=kc_top
29. February 21, Canwest News Service – (International) Quebec police bust alleged hacker ring. Quebec provincial police said Wednesday they have dismantled what they called the largest and most damaging computer-hacking network ever uncovered in Canada. During several action-packed early-morning hours Wednesday, provincial police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers dismantled the latest hacking ring by successfully carrying out 17 lightning-fast raids in 12 towns across Quebec, including Montreal. They collared 17 hacking suspects aged 17 to 26. All are male except for one, a 19-year-old woman. Police raiding parties also sealed and carted away dozens of hard drives and other computer components from the homes of each of the suspects. The actions of the group acts caused an estimated $45-million Candian in damages to governments, businesses, and individuals.
Source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=322372
30. February 20, Times – (International) Hacker breaks link between iTunes and the iPod. Software letting iTunes users copy music and video to mobile phones has been released by the notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon. The program allows people to drag and drop songs from iTunes into a folder on their desktop, which in turn copies the files to other devices such as mobile phones and games consoles via the web. In doing so, the software breaks the copy protection – known as 'digital rights management' or DRM – that is built into all music that is bought from iTunes. Music bought from iTunes can be played only on the iPod. DoubleTwist, DVD Jon's company, maintains that its service is legal, but lawyers said that Apple would almost certainly seek to shut it down because the law now specifically targeted technologies which attempted to circumvent measures such as DRM.
Source: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3403705.ece
31. February 21, Canwest News Service – (National) T-Mobile tests mobile service to replace home phone service. T-Mobile will test an Internet calling plan designed to replace consumers' home wireline-based phone service. The tests will be carried out in Dallas and in Seattle near T-Mobile's U.S. headquarters. The tests are in addition to TMobile's announcement earlier this week that it will offer complete wireless plans for $100 a month that include unlimited nationwide calling, text messaging, and data access.
32. February 20, IDG News Service – (National) Update: BlackBerry network goes down again. BlackBerry users in North America were complaining of service problems again Wednesday morning. Users of the BlackBerry outage newsgroup began reporting problems at around 6 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast related to scheduled maintenance on Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIM) network. The issue appeared to become progressively worse, initially affecting about half of users in the Americas but eventually affecting all customers, according to users of the newsgroup. RIM said it was not a system-wide outage. The problem affected only users of BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) and not BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) customers, RIM said. BIS customers sign up for the service through their mobile operators. Enterprises often use a different setup, installing a BES to deliver corporate e-mail to BlackBerry devices. While messages to and from both BIS and BES users pass through RIM's network operations centers, in this case, only the network components that handle BIS customers were affected.
• According to the WCVB 5 Boston, There are new concerns about the safety of the Ted Williams Tunnel in Boston, Massachusetts, because inspectors cannot reach thousands of epoxy bolts to ensure their strength. NewsCenter 5 reported that the issue is slowing safety inspections inside the tunnel. Inspectors are supposed to routinely check the ceiling bolts to make sure they are holding, but about 4,000 of the bolts cannot be seen because they are out of view. (See item 10)
• The Los Angles Times reports a cat-and-mouse game is portrayed by past and current inspectors, lawmakers, and an audit report that says the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service is easy to bypass and was failing to screen potentially sick cattle long before this week's beef recall, the largest in U.S. history. (See item 17)
29. February 20, vnunet.com – (National) Hackers step up website attacks. Trend Micro has warned that hackers are intensifying attacks on legitimate websites to spread malware. The security firm's 2007 Threat Report and 2008 Forecast debunked the myth about "not visiting questionable sites." But legitimate sites with the latest sports news, or links in a search engine result, could potentially infect visitors with malware. Trend Micro explained that an underground malware industry has carved itself a thriving market by exploiting the trust and confidence of web users. Apple also had to contend with the Zlob gang, proving that even alternative operating systems are not safe havens for the online user. 'Gromozon', malware disguised in the form of a rogue anti-spyware security application, also made its mark in 2007. The Storm botnet expanded in scope last year, and Trend Micro researchers found proof that the botnet is renting its services to host fly-by-night online pharmacies, pump-and-dump scams, and even portions of its backend botnet infrastructure. Trend Micro found that nearly 50 percent of all threat infections came from North America last year, but that Asian countries are also experiencing growth. Around 40 percent of infections stem from that region. Social networking communities and user-created content such as blog sites became infection vectors due to attacks on their underlying web 2.0 technologies, particularly cross-site scripting and streaming. Infection volumes nearly quadrupled between September and November 2007, indicating that malware authors took advantage of the holiday seasons to send spam or deploy spyware while users were shopping online. Based on the emerging trends of this year, Trend Micro forecasts that legacy code used in operating systems and vulnerabilities in popular applications will continue to be attacked in an effort to inject in-process malicious code. High-profile sites will continue to be the most sought-after attack vectors by criminals to host links to phishing and identity theft code. These sites include social networking, banking/financial, online gaming, search engines, travel, commercial ticketing, local government, news, jobs, blogs, and ecommerce sites for auctions and shopping. Communication services such as email, instant messaging and file sharing will continue to be abused by content threats such as image spam and malicious URLs.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2210040/hackers-step-website-attacks
30. February 19, IDG News Service – (National) DoS attack prevents access to WordPress.com blogs. The WordPress.com blog-hosting service suffered a denial-of-service (DoS) attack that began Saturday and was still preventing users from logging in or posting to their blogs on Tuesday. A spokesman for Automattic confirmed that the service experienced a DoS attack with spikes of up to 6 gigabits of incoming traffic, which was making some blogs inaccessible for about five to 15 minutes on Tuesday. Though service had mostly been restored, Automattic, which maintains WordPress.com, was still working on returning service to normal levels on Tuesday afternoon, he said. An employee at a New York-based company said on Tuesday afternoon that users there were unable to log in to their blogs and post comments for "most of the day." However, the blogs were still able to be viewed publicly. WordPress.com users were notified via e-mail about the DoS attack. In the e-mail, the service provider said that the attack wasaffecting user log-in and causing some forums to be offline.
Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=spam__malware_and_vulnerabilities&articleId=9063440&taxonomyId=85
31. February 19, IDG News Service – (National) Microsoft scrambles to quash 'friendly' worm story. Microsoft is moving to counter some scathing comments regarding a security paper authored by researchers at its Cambridge, England, facility. The paper, "Sampling Strategies for Epidemic-Style Information Dissemination," looks at how worms sometimes inefficiently spread their code. The research explores how a more efficient method could, for example, be used for distributing patches or other software. The advantage would be that patches could be distributed from PC to PC, rather than from a central server. That method would reduce the load on a server, and patches would be distributed faster. But the patches would have the same qualities as a computer worm, a generally malicious file. Since a story about the paper appeared on Thursday in the New Scientist magazine, the paper has been roundly assailed. A Microsoft spokesman said on Monday that the New Scientist story is not inaccurate. In response to the criticism, Microsoft said it does not intend to develop patch worms. The company also said it will continue to let customers decide how and when they apply security updates.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/02/19/Microsoft-scrambles-to-quash-friendly-worm-story_1.html
32. February 19, Associated Press – (National) FCC must study bird-tower collisions. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with conservation groups that claimed the Federal Communications Commission violated government rules by approving communications towers that threaten migratory birds. The court is requiring the agency to conduct at least the minimal analysis on the environmental effect of cell, radio, television and other towers built in the Gulf Coast region, as the groups have requested. "This is a significant ruling ... because the D.C. Circuit is directing the FCC for the first time to carefully assess the impact of communication towers on birds," said an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest law firm, which represented the American Bird Conservancy Inc. and Forest Conservation Council. The groups want the FCC to assess the 6,000 towers in the Gulf Coast region and at least deal with the ones that pose the biggest problems to birds, said the American Bird Conservancy's executive director for conservation advocacy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that between 4 million to 50 million birds die every year colliding with communication towers as they cross the Gulf of Mexico during the fall and spring seasons. Towers at a certain height have lights that attract the birds, which fly into them, each other or the tower wires. In the ruling Tuesday, the court also said the FCC did not justify why it did not use federal wildlife experts to assess the environmental threat.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_hi_te/communications_towers_court_ruling;_ylt=AkiRrK2h2Xi80OPu9MIddun67rEF
• According to the Associated Press, Amtrak is launching new security measures that include random screening of Amtrak passengers' carry-on bags. In addition to the screening, counterterrorism officers with bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol platforms and walk through trains, and sometimes will ride the trains. Amtrak plans to roll out the new "mobile security teams" first on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, before expanding them to the rest of the country. (See item 17)
• The Associated Press reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered Sunday the recall of 143 million pounds of beef from the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. slaughterhouse in Chino, California, where operations were suspended after an undercover video surfaced showing crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts. Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten. (See item 22)
30. February 19, TMCnet – (National) Cisco issues security alerts for its unified communications products. Cisco has issued two security alerts relating to flaws in its unified communications products which could enable hackers to launch denial of service attacks or hack into company telephony systems and retrieve sensitive information, among other annoyances. According to published reports, one of the alerts concerns a flaw in certain Cisco Unified IP Phone models running its Skinny Call Control Protocol (SCCP) and/or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The other alert relates to a vulnerability which might enable a hacker to launch an SQL Injection attack affecting Cisco's Unified Communications Manager software. Numerous models of Cisco's SCCP- and SIP-based phones contain a buffer overflow vulnerability in the handling of DNS responses. The company said a hacker launching a specially-crafted DNS response might be able to trigger a buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable phone. The company has already patched the vulnerability in SCCP firmware version 8.0(8) and SIP firmware version 8.8(0), but certain other versions are still vulnerable. Cisco has reportedly released free software updates to address the vulnerability in Unified Communications Manager, which could open it up to an SQL injection attack in the parameter key of the administrator and user interface pages. Such an attack could give a hacker access to usernames and password hashes that are stored in the database.
Source: http://visualvoicemail.tmcnet.com/unified-communications/articles/20968-cisco-issues-security-alerts-its-unified-communications-products.htm
31. February 19, IDG News Service – (National) Opera, Firefox bug could export users' Web history. A flaw in the way the Firefox and Opera browsers handle an image file could allow an attacker to see what Web sites a person has visited. The problem concerns how the two browsers handle a ".BMP" – or bitmap – image file, according to an advisory on Vexillium.org, which included a video illustrating the problem. A malicious bitmap file can be created that pulls other information from the browsers' memory. Some of the information that can be captured is random, but at other times could be valuable, the advisory said. "The harvested data contains various information including parts of other Web sites, users' favorites and history, and other information," Vexillium.org said. Using the "canvas" HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tag supported by the browsers, an attacker can capture the data. Then, using JavaScript, the information can be sent to a remote server. The flaw could also crash Firefox. The vulnerability affects Firefox 2.0.0.11 and previous versions of that browser, as well as the beta version of Opera 9.50.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/02/19/Opera-Firefox-bug-could-export-users-Web-history_1.html
32. February 18, ars technica – (National) New BotSniffer better able to detect botnets. Researchers at Georgia Tech have published a paper on BotSniffer – a program they have designed to detect and disable botnets. Botsniffer is not the only bot-detection program available, but the Georgia Tech research team believes that the program's approach to the botnet issue results in a better correlation rate and a lower number of false positives. BotSniffer is designed to detect botnets using either IRC or HTTP protocols, i.e. "push" or "pull" botnets. The program uses a detection method referred to as "Spatial-Temporal Correlation and Similarity" when searching for the presence of a botnet over the network. Spatial-Temporal Correlation and Similarity relies on the assumption that all botnets, regardless of function, will have to communicate with a master node in order to receive updates and instructions. Unlike humans, botnets tend to communicate in a highly synchronized fashion. BotSniffer specifically watches for these types of "response crowd" communications. If a group of responses qualify as both consistent and synchronous, the systems in question are much more likely to be part of a botnet as opposed to a group of humans communicating with each other. Approaching the problem from this angle allows BotSniffer to theoretically detect the presence of a botnet even when overall network communication is low.
Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080218-new-botsniffer-better-able-todetect-foul-stench-of-botnets.html
33. February 19, TechWorld.com – (National) Vodafone's Blackberries get disaster shield. Vodafone Group PLC will offer its BlackBerry customers a high availability and disaster recovery service – good news for corporate users who fear losing e-mail access on the platform. Based on Neverfail's disaster recovery technology, the Vodafone Neverfail High Availability Service for BlackBerry monitors the health of the entire email environment, including the server hardware, network infrastructure, application, and operating system. If any anomalies are identified, the service should immediately take action to prevent loss of service. The service promises to operate around the clock every day of the year. According to Vodafone, the service will either automatically attempt to restart applications before they fail, switch over to a secondary server, or alert the IT staff so that no downtime or loss of service is experienced. Once the issue is resolved, they are automatically switched back to the main servers, and neither users nor administrators are required to restart their applications. The service requires no SAN or Cluster technology, and supports LAN and WAN technology.
34. February 18, Agence France Presse – (International) Saboteurs may have cut Mideast telecom cables: UN agency. Damage to several undersea telecom cables that caused outages across the Middle East and Asia could have been an act of sabotage, the International Telecommunication Union said on Monday. "We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago," said the UN agency's head of development. Five undersea cables were damaged in late January and early February leading to disruption to Internet and telephone services in parts of the Middle East and south Asia. There has been speculation that the sheer number of cables being cut over such a short period was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved. India's Flag telecom revealed on February 7 that the cut to the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman was caused by a ship's anchor. But mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts. "Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships," said the UN representative on the sidelines of a conference on cyber-crime held in Qatar. The Falcon cable has since been repaired, along with the Flag Europe Asia cable which was damaged off Egypt's Mediterranean coast. The status of the remaining cable is still unclear.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080218163315.psfe6g65&show_article=1
• According to NBC News and MSNBC, a man gunned down five people last Thursday inside a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University before killing himself. Police said the man had recently "become erratic" after halting his medication and carried a shotgun to campus inside a guitar case. The university's president said he knew of no connection between the attack and threats scrawled on a dormitory bathroom wall in December. (See item 27)
• The Associated Press reports that the FBI has put its domestic terror squads on alert for any threats against synagogues and other potential Jewish targets in the U.S. following the killing of a Hezbollah commander last Tuesday. U.S. law enforcement officials say there have been no specific threats so far against any Jewish centers. (See item 33)
29. February 14, Associated Press – (National) Use of rogue DNS servers on rise. Mendacious machines controlled by hackers that reroute Internet traffic from infected computers to fraudulent Web sites are increasingly being used to launch attacks, according to a paper published this week by researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google Inc. The paper estimates roughly 68,000 servers on the Internet are returning malicious Domain Name System results, which means that people with compromised computers are sometimes being directed to the wrong Web sites – and often have no idea. The peer-reviewed paper, which offers one of the broadest measurements yet of the number of rogue DNS servers, was presented at the Internet Society's Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego. The fraud works like this: When a user with an affected computer tries to go to, for example, Google's Web site, they are redirected to a spoof site loaded with malicious code or to a wall of ads whose profits flow back to the hackers. The hackers who hijack DNS queries are looking to steal personal information – from e-mail login credentials to credit data – and take over infected machines. The spoof sites run the gamut. Some are stunningly convincing, others amusingly bogus with spelling errors and typos. The DNS system is a critical part of the Internet's infrastructure, used to make sure computers know how to contact each other. People usually automatically use the DNS servers of their Internet providers, but the recent wave of attacks modifies the settings on victims' computers to send traffic to rogue DNS servers.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ifrgeDBfUGAvXtLH_vgVrKcm0s_wD8UPLR8O1
30. February 14, Techworld – (National) 'Critical' Linux kernel bugs discovered. Security researchers have uncovered "critical" security flaws in a version of the Linux kernel used by a large number of popular distributions. The three bugs allow unauthorized users to read or write to kernel memory locations or to access certain resources in certain servers, according to a SecurityFocus advisory. They could be exploited by malicious local users to cause denial of service attacks, disclose potentially sensitive information, or gain "root" privileges, according to security experts. The bug affects all versions of the Linux kernel up to version 2.6.24.1, which contains a patch. Distributions such as Ubuntu, Turbolinux, SuSE, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian, and others are affected. The problems are within three functions in the system call fs/splice.c, according to an advisory from Secunia. "In the 2.6.23 kernel, the system call functionality has been further extended resulting in ... critical vulnerabilities," said iSEC Security Research in an advisory. Secunia disagreed about the bugs' seriousness, giving them a less critical ranking. Exploit code for the vulnerabilities has been released publicly on the hacker site milw0rm.com, and Core Security Technologies has also developed a commercial exploit for the bugs, researchers said. Researchers advised system administrators to update their kernels immediately. Last month, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security bug-fixing scheme uncovered an average of one security glitch per 1,000 lines of code in 180 widely used open-source software projects. Secunia also previously discovered that the number of security bugs in open-source Red Hat Linux operating system and Firefox browsers far outstripped comparable products from Microsoft last year.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/14/Critical-Linux-kernel-bugsdiscovered_1.html
31. February 14, IDG News Service – (National) Most analog cellular to fade away on Monday. You may think of sunsets as something nice to look at, but if you have an older cell phone or a home alarm system, there is one coming up on Monday that may not be so pretty. That day, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will let mobile operators shut down their analog networks. It is called the "analog sunset" because those Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) networks – which were first deployed in the 1980s and brought cellular service to millions of Americans – will finally disappear behind the digital networks that serve almost all mobile phones in use today. The biggest U.S. mobile operators, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless, will close down their analog networks that day. At the same time, AT&T will turn off its first digital network, which uses Time-Division Multiple Access technology. (Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA do not have analog networks.) Calls to some small, rural mobile operators indicated that most of them plan to shut down AMPS, too. There are not many mobile phones out there that will go dark after the analog sunset, according to the big carriers, which have been warning subscribers about the change for months and offering them incentives to switch over. However, AMPS is not only used for cell phones. Many alarm companies use the system to alert police or fire departments to emergencies at homes or businesses. About three years ago, the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC) industry group took a survey which revealed that just fewer than one million of the approximately 30 million monitored home and business alarm systems used an analog cellular network. About 850,000 of them used the system only as a backup in case the phone line was cut, he said. Alarm manufacturers are now replacing many of those analog systems with digital ones, said an AICC representative.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/14/Most-analog-cellular-to-fade-awayon-Monday_1.html
32. February 14, Reuters – (National) Mobile industry sees new security risks. Security systems can now block the first computer viruses attack on cell phones, but the mobile industry sees new risks stemming from upcoming open software platforms such as Google's Android. Since 2004, viruses have been able to disable phones or swell phone bills through pricey messages or unwanted calls, leading to a new security technology market. "If Android becomes a fully open platform ... and when such a platform becomes more common, risks are greater than with the current platform kings such as Symbian," said the head of research at security software firm F-Secure. Security specialists also pointed to potential risks arising from Apple's plans to open its software platform to third party developers this month. While the risk of a cell phone getting infected is still relatively small, thousands of phones have seen problems. One in seven global mobile users has already been exposed to mobile viruses, either directly or they know someone whose phone has been infected, according to a McAfee study. Since the first mobile virus appeared in 2004, the number of different viruses, worms, or other types of malware has reached 395, F-Secure said, adding that the number of malware has increased only slightly in the last 12 months.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL144082020080215
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Alibaba offers 508 alloy steel bar 1.2080 products. About 86% of these are steel round bars. A wide variety of alloy steel bar 1.2080 options are available to you, such as astm, aisi, and bs.
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AISI D3 cold work steel, also know as DIN 1.2080 (Werkstoff) and JIS SKD1, is a 12% chrome alloy steel. D3 cold work steelhas very high wear resistance against abrasive and adhesive wear due to the high volume of hard carbides in the steel matrix, medium toughness, dimensionally stable, high compressive strength, not secondary hardenable.
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AISI D3 steel alloy should be pre-heated very slowly to 815℃ (1500°F) and then temperature can be increased to 1010°C (1850°F). then keep at 1010°C (1850°F) for 20 to 45 minutes and air cool quenched.
1.2080 X210Cr12 AISI D3 is an air hardening, high carbon high chromium, alloy tool steel with excellent resistance to abrasion and wear. 1.2080 X210Cr12 has good through hardening characteristics combined with dimensional stability with high resistance to tempering.


We can appreciate that on arrival, you may be feeling anxious or fragile. It is important to us that you feel comfortable in your new surroundings, so as soon as we're sure you're safe, you will be given time to relax on your own, or chat to other residents or staff members in your own time. You will be shown around the centre and one of our chefs will prepare you a gourmet meal. You will be encouraged to make use of the facilities, should you wish.
A typical day in the Step One Recovery programme will consist of a variety of treatments, which might include some holistic treatment, work on developing your understanding of the 12 step approach, some relapse prevention techniques and at least one therapy session.
Do you provide a lot of group therapy?
We offer some group therapy, but prioritise one to one bespoke treatment.
I don't feel very sociable. Will I have to speak to the other residents?
Everybody's privacy is respected and a priority at our Villa Camino de la Paz centre. Staff members will be available to chat 24/7, should you feel the need to speak to somebody, but it's up to you how much interaction you choose to have. Most of our clients will choose to take some alone time. Nobody is judged on how sociable they feel.


Maybe you carve pumpkins with your family every year, but you have never thought about the history behind the tradition. Make this year the year that you make a tradition of researching the origins of this and other holiday traditions. By teaching your children how Holidays came to be and why we do the things we do at holidays, you will help them learn about history and enjoy the holidays more. Help your children to understand what is true and what is false when they hear about what it means to carve a pumpkin at Halloween.
Whereas Halloween originated thousands of years ago, carving pumpkins is a relatively new tradition. The reason for this is that the pumpkin is a fruit (not a vegetable—but that is another article) that is indigenous to the Americas. That means that in Western Europe where Halloween originated there were no pumpkins to carve. The first reference to carving pumpkins was made in a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier in the early 1800s. It is thought that the earliest pumpkin carvings were not associated with Halloween at all but were rather associated with the harvest.
That little tidbit aside, the concept of pumpkin carving on Halloween likely originated with the ancient Celtics. They celebrated Samhain at the end of the summer, and it was quite similar to a New Year'Eve celebration: only the Celtics believed that the dead were able to walk the earth on that night. Part of the festivities associated with Samhain included building big bonfires to honor the gods. The whole village would attend the festival and then walk home after the fire had burned. Because they believed that the dead were walking the earth, it became traditional to dress in scary costumes and carry home an ember from the fire in a hollowed out vegetable. People would carve scary faces in the vegetables to further dissuade evil spirits.
This is most likely the tradition that most directly led to the traditions that we now celebrate at Halloween. The pumpkins that we carve are analogous to the carved out gourds, turnips, and beets carried by the ancient Celts on Samhain. However, the name Jack o' lantern has a different history entirely. The name Jack o' lantern comes from an Irish tale about a drunk named Jack who played a trick on the devil. Jack tricked the devil out of his soul but found that he was still not welcome in heaven. Admitted to neither heaven nor hell, Jack roamed the earth, carrying a bit of coal to light his way. He carried the coal in a hollowed out gourd, know as Jack'lantern.
Knowing the stories behind these and other Halloween traditions will be fun for your whole family. You can go to the Jackolanterns.net website and find out about the different Halloween traditions around the world. Look up the tradition associated with your country of origin. You will find that of the countries that carve vegetables or pumpkins for Halloween, some do it to welcome spirits of the dead, and some do it to scare away the spirits of the dead. You will also find other fun traditions that are enjoyed around the world.
Learn what you can about one country'traditional celebration, and try to replicate it this Halloween. Holidays don't just have to be fun times with too much candy. They can be educational experiences where we find out more about our own history and the traditions of those that share the world with us.


Delicious mini pasties made to our nana's recipe. Lots of potato onion a hint of carrot a touch of ground beef mince.
Delicious mini pasties made to our nana's recipe. Lots of potato onion a hint of carrot a touch of ground beef mince.


text:
Many Private Wells Open to Contaminants
Protect your head. Everybody knows that. That's why cyclists and football players wear helmets. But a wellhead -- the part of a water well you can see - - needs protection, too.
And many in Georgia don't get it.
"From what I've seen in southwest Georgia, only about half the wellheads are protected from runoff that may contain contaminants," said Wayne Adkins, an engineer with the University of Georgia Extension Service.
Extension engineers Tony Tyson and Kerry Harrison say probably only about half the private wells statewide are properly sealed from potential contaminants.
About 95 percent of all rural Georgians -- half a million households -- rely on private wells for their water.
"It's important for those homeowners to realize that they need to protect their wells to protect their health," Harrison said. "Many people who have a well don't know if it's properly sealed because they don't know it's supposed to be done."
A 1985 Georgia law requires well drillers to seal wells with "an impervious material" in at least the top 10 feet of the well. Adkins said a special material called bentoni clay works best. But sand concrete grout does the job with less cost.
Well drillers must seal each well they drill. It's then the owner's responsibility to build a concrete curb around the wellhead. This curb helps keep contaminated water or chemicals out of the well, Tyson said. It also prevents running water from eroding the seal.
The curbed area must extend at least two feet in all directions from the well casing and be at least four inches thick.
"The curb provides another layer of protection from potential contaminants," Tyson said.
Harrison figures it costs less than $100 to properly seal a well. That's a small price to pay for safe water.
Poorly sealed wells create a direct route down the outside of the casing into the well. Contaminants that seep down outside the well casing are then pumped up through the casing into the home or farm the well supplies.
Wells drilled on a hillside or in a low area are at special risk. Water flowing down a hill may carry chemicals or animal waste. And standing water can allow contaminants to concentrate. The contaminated water can flow down around a well casing, straight to the water source.
Homeowners with unsealed wells put themselves and their families, and possibly their neighbors, at risk, Tyson said. A contaminated well can affect nearby wells. But the levels of the contaminant will be lower in those wells.
Water-testing will show whether a well's water is safe. Tyson suggests regular testing for nitrates and bacteria that could cause illness.
Natural soil and rock formations help filter water from the surface before it reaches the aquifer. But letting chemicals go straight down into a well undoes what nature designed to protect us.
The aquifers under much of Georgia hold millions of gallons of water. When a fairly small amount of contaminant enters the water, that huge volume dilutes it to safer levels.
"But some gets in there," Adkins said. "And every little bit adds up. We need to keep the water clean to start with. This is the way to stop the pollution before it starts."
Experts/Sources:
Tony Tyson
Kerry A. Harrison
Wayne Adkins
A promise fulfilled: Bridging the gaps in Alzheimer's care 01/30/23 Lauren Baggett
At the same time they were building clinical capacity, the University of Georgia's CARE team was developing a curriculum to educate communities and health care providers about Alzheimer's and dementia prevention and the need for diagnosis. To help get that curriculum in front of rural communities and providers, they turned to experts at UGA Cooperative Extension.
Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture awards first seed grants 01/27/23 David Mitchell
The University of Georgia's Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture has awarded eight seed grants to fund initial research for projects at the convergence of agriculture, engineering, computing and related areas of study. The grants, the first of their kind from IIPA, follow a strategic push by the university to improve its industry collaboration across fields of study and support foundational research to advance agriculture and economic development in the state of Georgia.
UGA posts record $545.6M in research and development spending in FY22 01/26/23 Michael Terrazas
For the first time in its history, the University of Georgia surpassed a half-billion dollars in research and development spending in fiscal year 2022. With total expenditures of $545.6 million — representing a jump of more than 10% from the previous year — UGA did not simply exceed the half-billion mark, it rocketed past it.
Mental Health Day at Georgia Capitol to highlight rural mental health 01/25/23 Amanda Budd
Mental Health Day at the Georgia State Capitol will be held from 8 a.m. to noon Tuesday, Jan. 31, to raise awareness of mental health issues and allow mental health advocates to share their insights with lawmakers. The event is an opportunity to increase awareness about mental health and health services, especially for those in rural areas, according to University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agent Jennifer Dunn.
Where do bees go in the winter? 01/24/23 Amanda Budd
As temperatures continue to drop and many pollinators fade from view, you may be wondering what happens to bees during the cold season. Do they hibernate? Are they hiding in plain sight? How a bee spends the winter depends on the species of bee, but the insects have an arsenal of strategies to survive the chill, including burrowing, gathering in tight clusters, or hiding in flower stems or leaf piles.
UGA Extension helps farmers improve efficiency, save 100 million gallons of water 01/23/23 Emily Cabrera
Over the last few decades, water use-related disagreements between Georgia and its surrounding states have held the spotlight in the Southeast. To address the need for conservation, the Agricultural Water Efficiency Team (AgWET) was created to train University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agents to transfer advanced irrigation scheduling knowledge to growers through a unique one-on-one educational approach.

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There are so many companies wondering why website design and responsive web design is something that they should really incorporate into their local business. It's a good question and we want to explain why having a responsive website is an absolute must in today's world. Whether you have a local business or you offer national services and or products you will need a high quality website in order to sell your products and services there are many different ways to create websites and there are many different website builders out on the web as well.
We highly recommend going with word press which is an open source software and never going with the theme for template builders like Yola, Weebly, so on and so forth. Many of the free website builders use templates and they are not mobile responsive and they are not SEO friendly in any way shape or form. It is incredibly important to make sure that your website not only has a user-friendly layout but that is also mobile responsive. It is incredibly important to make sure that your website will adapt to a desktop computer to an android phone or any sort of iPad or iPod screen. Years ago companies were developing different websites for different screens and while it worked to some extent it really was limited and took a lot of extra time. What we recommend for all of our clients now is to have a mobile responsive website design.
Having a website that is both user friendly and mobile friendly is by far the best for your business. This is one reason why we stick with WordPress for our website design projects because by default most of the themes out there with word press, 100% mobile responsive. Overall we want to relay this important message. Optimizing your website is not simply an option but it is absolutely mandatory. If you have read any of the studies and reviews of late you will notice that there are more mobile viewers than desktop users now. When people view a website on their tiny iPhone or iPad screen it must be responsive so that it can adapt to the smaller dimensional screen with.
Even if your website is not built with WordPress we can still make your website mobile responsive. We have been developing the latest marketing and website strategies through our experience in optimizing websites for ten years. Learn more by visiting Las Vegas web design Co.com!


Write down the number of large items with their names in a notepad. For example, Mattress – 3, Television – 2, etc.
Get one packaging box. Try to get one that is closest to the size of packing you prefer.
Measure the number of boxes you will need to pack each room and then your entire house or office.
You must use color coding along with writing on boxes. Color codes make it easier for your movers in San Antonio to organize your boxes. You can use one color for bedrooms, then another for the kitchen and so on. Also, you can mark fragile items separately with clear, bold marking and brightly colored paper.
Discussing your concerns with movers in San Antonio helps you to feel at ease about the move. You should mention the items you care most about. It is a good idea to label the items you feel need extra care.
Professional movers make your house or office move easy. You can organize better by taking a few steps beforehand.
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Humble Bundle - Games for Linux Windows Mac OS X and Android - you name the price and help charity
The Humble Bundle is a new way to buy games. Firstly this is a bundle of games all work on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and (for the first time) Android phones and tablets. Secondly there is no DRM or restrictions preventing you from getting on any playing the game. Thirdly you get to name your own price for the games. Finally you get to nominate where the money actually goes - you could give it all to charity, or share it between the chosen charities and the developers.
The bundle is only available for a short period of time, but then another bundle comes along a few weeks or so later.
The current bundle
The games are mainly puzzle / strategy based.
The current bundle that I've just bought includes:
Anomaly Warzone Earth
A futuristic war game.
Roll a box around a 3D platform
A relaxing but challenging physics based floating game.
A platform puzzle game where you have to move a chicken around to collect eggs.
And if you pay above the average price ($6.15) you also get:
A tower / bridge building game with flexble goo based creatures.
The games are all available on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Android.
The Android version is a bit different in that some are modified to use just your finger rather than using mouse and/or key controls, but otherwise the games are the same whatever the operating system.
In most cases I think that the Android platform works best.
As well as being cross platform you can download for multiple platforms. In my case I've installed the Linux version on my laptops and the Android version on my Asus EeePad Transformer Android Tablet.
Unlike some software there are no keys to keep safe and it doesn't require you to login before you can play, and no ads or pay for more features.
It is not however free or open source software. It's illegal to give or sell copies of the game on, but at least they don't assume that everyone is out to steal the software.
One of the great things is that you get to name your own price and so pay what you think it's worth. You also choose who gets that money between the developers, the nominated charities and a Tip (used to support the group that provides the bundles). In my case I paid over double the average price, but did give a bit more of that to the charities.
It's a balance between supporting the charities and encouraging the developers to release software through the Humble Bundle in future.
The android version works great on a tablet. You do have to enable "untrusted software" as it's not downloaded through Google Markeplace.
You will need a good spec mobile phone if you want to install these on a phone rather than a tablet. In particular Anomaly is over 100Mb in size and so wouldn't fit on my phones memory - stuck in a two year contract :-(
I've had a few minor problems with the games, but not too difficult to resolve.
The first is with Anomaly. On my main laptop I run Linux Mint 12 64 bit, but the debian package only installs on 32bit versions. There is a binary / tar package available, which installs fine, but does not add itself to the start menu (instead just a desktop icon).
To fix - from a terminal issue the following commands - after running install.sh
sudo cp /home/stewart/Desktop/anomaly.desktop /usr/share/applications
sudo chmod 644 /usr/share/applications/anomaly.desktop
This copies the shortcut file to the start menu and changes the permissions.
There is also a small problem with Edge running on my netbook. It runs fine, but does not set the screen size back correctly when exiting. The easiest way to fix is to press the "Use external monitor button" on the laptop twice, which forces the screen to change back to it's previous setting.
These are all minor issues. Considering this software is available on multiple platforms it does very well.
Suitable for kids?
You probably don't want to let young children play with Anomaly (because of the concept rather than any actual inappropriate graphics), but the rest are suitable for all the family. My kids particularly like Toki Tori and EDGE, as the others are a little difficult for younger gamers.
The games are good and well worth getting hold of. It's unlikely I would have bought them as standalone apps, but well worth it in the bundle.
This is the first Humble Bundle that I've bought. I was keeping a look out for the release as I've heard about it during the previous bundle. I was considering buying it based on support for Linux, but having Android as well was a real bonus. Definately well worth considering especially when you consider that it's going to help worthwhile charities.
I'll be looking out for the next Humble Bundle when that comes out - especially if that has Android as well.
The Humble Bundle website
Also see MP3 music downloads that help charity
More software and hardware reviews for Linux
Wordpress easy upgrade
Review of Ubuntu 20.10 desktop edition on the Raspberry Pi
iPod Nano 5th generation - problems with Linux
Linux Format Awards (my vote for Devolo hardware support)
» PenguinTutor Facebook page


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Correlates of (inappropriate) benzodiazepine use: the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA)
Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2011 Feb;71(2):263-72. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.2010.03818.x.
Leonie Manthey 1 , Tineke van Veen, Erik J Giltay, José E Stoop, Arie Knuistingh Neven, Brenda W J H Penninx, Frans G Zitman
1 Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. l.manthey@lumc.nl
Aim: Results on determinants of benzodiazepine (BZD) use in general and inappropriate use were inconsistent and mostly univariate. The relative importance of sociodemographic, psychological and physical determinants has never been investigated in a comprehensive, multivariate model.
Methods: We included 429 BZD users and 2423 non-users from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) in order to investigate sociodemographic, psychological and physical determinants of BZD use and inappropriate use by logistic and linear regression analyses.
Results: BZDs were used by a considerable proportion of the 2852 NESDA participants (15.0%). BZD use was independently associated with older age, singleness, unemployment, treatment in secondary care, higher medical consumption (more severe) anxiety, depression (OR [95% CI]=1.95 [1.29, 2.93]), comorbidity, insomnia, SSRI (OR [95% CI]=2.05 [1.55, 2.70]), TCA and other antidepressant (OR [95% CI]=2.44 [1.64, 3.62]) use. Overall, BZD use was rarely in accordance with all guidelines, mainly because most users (82.5%) exceeded the recommended duration of safe use. Inappropriate use was independently associated with older age (β=0.130) and chronic illnesses (β=0.120). Higher scores on agreeableness were associated with less inappropriate use.
Conclusions: Mentally or physically vulnerable subjects were most likely to use BZDs. The most vulnerable (i.e. the old and physically ill) BZD users were at highest risk of inappropriate BZD use. Without further evidence of the effectiveness of BZDs in long-term use, caution in initiating BZD prescriptions is recommended, particularly when patients are chronically ill and old, as those are most likely to display inappropriate use.
© 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology © 2011 The British Pharmacological Society.
Anti-Anxiety Agents / administration & dosage*
Anxiety Disorders / drug therapy*
Benzodiazepines / administration & dosage*
Depressive Disorder / drug therapy*
Drug Utilization / statistics & numerical data
Epidemiologic Methods
Inappropriate Prescribing / statistics & numerical data*
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Anti-Anxiety Agents


Hi all! Long time no see! I took a little break from blogging to spend time with my kiddos. Now that they're back in school I can get back with the program 🙂 Pahlish is releasing some real beauties Sunday August 13th at 7 PM CST. Four of the colors are from the Afternoon Tea collection, and the other six don't really have a theme. Let's dive on into the pictures shall we?
First up we have Thistle. This is definitely one of my favorites of the collection, and I think you'll see why! This polish is described as a thistle blue-grey cream with multichrome red shimmer. Uhh yeah, the multichrome red shimmers are what won my heart! I used two coats.
Next we have Borealis. This polish is described as a deep bruised plum with duochrome teal shimmer. Unfortunately my camera didn't detect the duochrome nature of the polish, but trust me it's there. I used two coats for the pictures below.
Gilded Olive… What a beauty you are. This polish is described as a burnished olive gold foil. At first I wasn't sure how this shade would look on me, but in the end I love it! I used two coats for opacity!
Next is Chocolate Diamond. This beauty is described as a bronze foil. I used two easy coats for opacity.
Daughters of Triton is next up, and this polish is described as an aqua holographic with glowing purple shimmer and ultrachrome flakies. I'm a huge fan of blue polishes, so this one didn't disappoint! I used two coats for the pictures!
Next is Ursula which is described as a soft garnet holographic with glowing purple shimmer and ultrachrome flakes. This one is a stunner! I used two coats.
Now we're moving on to the Afternoon Tea collection. I want to go ahead and mention that I used three coats for all of the polishes down below. There are four polishes to talk about so let's go right on into the first one!
Chamomile is described as a soft porcelain blue cream with delicate red shimmer and red ultrachrome flakes. Such a soft and pretty shade! It took three thin coats to reach opacity.
Jasmine is up next and this polish is described as a soft mint green cream with teal shimmer and teal ultrachrome flakes. Again, a beauty! I used three coats.
And last but not least we have Moroccan Rosebud. This beauty is described as a soft blush cream with pink shimmer and dark purple ultrachrome flakes. Also I wanted to mention that this polish dries a tad darker than what's in the bottle. I used three thin coats.
Well, there you have it! What do you think of these new polishes releasing from Pahlish? I think Shannon done an amazing job (as always) creating such a unique and fun collection for August. And while I love summer, I'm kind of ready for fall. I love the deep colors and jewel toned polishes that come out around that time… So bring it on! Again, if you're interested in any of these beautiful shades, they'll be released Sunday August 13th at 7 PM CST on Pahlish's website. Be sure to check out their Instagram and Facebook page as well! Have a great weekend!
This entry was posted in Beauty and tagged beauty, Indie, makeup, Manicure, Polish. Bookmark the permalink.
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You should get some of them!!! When does your kids start school??


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Q: How to wait till all components are loaded in Cypress? My Cypress test cases are working fine when I run from my system pointing to QA. But the scheduled builds from CI are failing randomly because sometimes the page is taking more time to load.
I've tried cy.wait(1500) -> It works sometimes and fails sometimes. So, I was wondering is there a command in cypress that waits till all components in the page is loaded. Instead of I try different values inside cy.wait() which in turn fails someday?

A: By default, Cypress has smart waits for all elements to load and the page to render. This section confirms that: https://docs.cypress.io/guides/core-concepts/introduction-to-cypress.html#Cypress-is-Not-Like-jQuery
Instead of inserting cy.wait() in each and every step (Best practice is to minimise the use of this), you can include a maximum timeout on your cypress.json file:
  "defaultCommandTimeout": 30000,
  "pageLoadTimeout": 60000,
  "requestTimeout": 60000,

If it still fails, then something is wrong with your test environment and might be a good time for a dev to check its performance as you don't want an environment that loads that long especially if it is a replica of production / live site.

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