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Mid-June 2008 |
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Your bi-monthly update on Homeland Security
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SUICIDE TERROR AND THE THREAT OF EXPLOSIVES
Seattle, WA - July 16-17, 2008
Boston, MA - July 21-22, 2008
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Loan Wolf Terror Threats  By Stewart Bell
A newly declassified Canadian intelligence report is warning about the emerging threat posed by "lone wolf" Islamist terrorists who operate completely on their own.
Terrorists inspired by al-Qaeda have, in the past, tended to work in cells, but the report says they are beginning to use the solo strategy once associated with the militant far right.
"Lone wolves motivated by Islamist extremism are a recent development," it says. "Islamist terrorist strategists are now advocating that Muslims take action at a grassroots level, without waiting for instructions."
It adds that lone wolf Islamist extremist attacks and conspiracies "seem to be on the increase" and that "several such cases have been recorded since 9/11" although the list of examples appears to have been censored from the report.
Read on...
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BOSTON -(Dow Jones)- Even that bastion of secrecy, the Central Intelligence Agency, has embraced social networking.
CIA employees Don Burke and Sean Dennehy, two evangelists of Intellipedia, discussed the two-year-old project and some of the problems they have encountered at TechWeb's annual Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.
Running on the same software as Wikipedia, Intellipedia has three networks: unclassified, secret and top secret. But it's grown beyond just a wiki, offering a suite of tools, such as iVideo, which enables video file sharing.
(This story originally appeared in VentureWire, a daily email newsletter published by Dow Jones & Co. that covers venture capital and start-up companies.)
Unlike Wikipedia, Intellipedia is seen as a learning tool for intelligence agencies rather than an authoritative fount of information, said Dennehy, and it "encourages conflicting reporting." To ensure that every point of view is documented, people must create an account before they can post anything.
Read on...
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Synthetic Biology
By Mohit Joshi
London, June 10 : Scientists at the University of Nottingham have warned that 'synthetic biology' - a technique popular for its ability to create artificial life by engineering organisms - is at risk of damaging the ecosystem and being abused by terrorists.
In a report, commissioned by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the university researchers stress the need for new control and regulations on the use of synthetic biology, highlighting ethical and social concerns over the issue.
They fear that synthetic biology may be misused to spread "bioterrorism", designing new organisms to be hostile to humans.
The authors of the report - Andrew Balmer and Professor Paul Martin - have also expressed concern about the rise of "garage biology", a term they use for experimentation at home.
Read on...
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 The Midwest Security & Police Conference/ExpoAUGUST 12 - 13, 2008 ROSEMONT, IL, USARegister Now!
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The Homeland Security Bulletin Of Open Source Threats HS BOOST
SSI is taking orders from Intelligence agencies around the country for its brand-new workshop, Jihad 2.0 from Virtual to Physical. The workshop, created by Gadi Aviran, the founder of Terrogence, the content providers for SSI's new monthly Intelligence Subscription service HS Boost has already been ordered in Florida, Boston, Denver, Anaheim and many more cities. The workshop increases awareness of the entire Terror threat life cycle without undue focus on any one aspect or modus operandi. This gives Homeland Security an advantage in understanding phenomena like Suicide Terror which far too often are treated as independant threats.
The last Intelligence bulletin drew attention to the threat to US railways, and indeed there was an incident this month in Virginia. Anyone that is a bona fide member of an intelligence service that would like to receive a copy of the pilot should contact Henry Morgenstern 305.401.6906 (cell).
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CFATS: Chemical Facility Anti Terrorism Standards
 By Richard A. Michau
No one would deny the importance of protecting our chemical and petrochemical facilities against terrorists and other threats. But putting standards and best practices in place is understandably a lengthy and ever-evolving process. The industry's security leaders need to stay on top of the latest regulations, such as the Chemical Facility Anti Terrorism Standards (CFATS), to be compliant with the law and provide adequate security for their facilities and personnel.
Just over a year ago, on June 8, 2007, the Department of Homeland Security's CFATS Interim Final Rule (IFR) became a Federal Regulation under 6 CFR 27. The IFR along with its Appendix A, Chemicals of Interest (COI), released on Nov. 20, 2007 put in motion the uniform process of assessing our nation's chemical and petrochemical facilities against Risk-Based Performance Standards (RBPS). The purpose is to ensure that "high risk" chemical and petrochemical facilities have the proper security measures in place to prevent the release, theft, diversion, sabotage, or contamination of specific COI, as identified in Appendix A. The impact on the industry will depend on where a company's facility is ranked in the CFATS Tier process.
Read on...
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 By Joseph Menn
Hackers are able to gain access to confidential information despite elaborate safeguards.
Most thefts of sensitive information from corporations occur when the victimized companies don't know what data they have, where they have it or who has access to it, according to a study released Wednesday by Verizon Communications Inc.
In about two-thirds of the 500 data thefts investigated by Verizon's security unit over the last several years, the targets didn't know what information they were storing or where exactly they were storing it.
Brian Sartin, a Verizon executive who worked on the study, said it was typical for a company to encrypt the customer information stored on its central mainframe computer without realizing that the underlying data was available at dozens of other places.
Read on...
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ORMAC - Broward Community College, FL - August 4-5, 2008
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Secret Al-Qaida, Iraq Files Found on British Train  By Paisley Dodds
LONDON (AP) - Secret government documents on al-Qaida and Iraq were left on a commuter train, prompting a major police investigation into the latest in a series of embarrassing security breaches, British officials said Wednesday.
The documents belonged to a senior intelligence official in the Cabinet office and were found by a passenger on a London commuter train Tuesday. The envelope was then passed to the British Broadcasting Corp.
Seven pages stamped "UK Top Secret" included the latest government intelligence assessment on al-Qaida and Iraq's security forces, the BBC said. The documents were also stamped "for UK/US/Canadian and Australian eyes only." The first page was dated June 5, the BBC reported.
Two of the assessments were made by the British government's Joint Intelligence Committee. The report on Iraq was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence. The al-Qaida report was commissioned by the Foreign and the Home Offices.
Read on...
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Secret Courts 
By Ryan Singel
Does the FBI track cellphone users' physical movements without a warrant? Does the Bureau store recordings of innocent Americans caught up in wiretaps in a searchable database? Does the FBI's wiretap equipment store information like voicemail passwords and bank account numbers without legal authorization to do so?
That's what the nation's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wanted to know, in a series of secret inquiries in 2005 and 2006 into the bureau's counterterrorism electronic surveillance efforts, revealed for the first time in newly declassified documents.
The inquires are the first publicly known questioning of the FBI's post-9/11 surveillance activities by the secret court, which has historically approved nearly every wiretap application submitted to it. The court handles surveillance requests in counterterrorism and foreign espionage investigations. The inquiries add to questions surrounding how the FBI has used the broad powers handed to it by Congress in the 2001 USA Patriot Act, including the FBI's admitted abuse of so-called National Security Letters to get stored telephone and financial records.
Read on... |
Sarasota FL, September 15-19, 2008
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 By Paula Reed Ward
A Clearfield County man who gave undercover federal agents explicit instructions on how to make what he called "bean can grenades" has been arrested on weapons charges.
Bradley Kahle, 60, of Troutville, who said the election of Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama would prompt a civil war, is being held pending a detention hearing today in Johnstown.
He is one of four men now charged in separate but related investigations by the U.S. attorney's office related to possible militia activity.
The three others, also in custody, were indicted by a federal grand jury last week. They have detention hearings in Pittsburgh today.
Read on...
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Air Force Calls for Help in Building Cyberwarfare Skills  By William Mathews
Know how to hack a computer system and quietly steal information? Can you also deceive, deny, disrupt, degrade or destroy the system? Then the Air Force wants to hear from you.
In mid-May, the Air Force published a request for "white papers" that will show the service how it can achieve Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement.
It's the latest step the Air Force is taking to build up its cyberwarfare capabilities - offensive as well as defensive. Last fall, the service began assembling its own Cyber Command.
The Air Force Research Laboratory plans to spend $3 million this year and another $8 million next year in developing new cyberwarfare techniques.
Read on...
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July 29 -31, 2008 - Miami Beach Convention Center
Miami Beach, FL |
September 19-27 2008 - November 14-22 2008
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Sincerely, Security Solutions International | | | |
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For further information:
Security Solutions International, Kendall Tamiami Executive Airport,
14300 S.W. 129th Street, Suite 204, Miami, Fl. 33186
866-573-3999 Office, 866-573-2090 Fax
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About SSI 
