Weekly Security Sprint EP 40. Maine, expanded conflict, scams, and more!

31 October 2023

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In this week’s Security Sprint, Dave and Andy talk about the topics below. For more of these and other security updates, subscribe to our free daily report, delivered directly to your inbox, the Gate 15 SUN. To subscribe, please email Gate15@Gate15.global.

Main Topics

Maine Shootings

FB-ISAO: October 2023 Threat Level Statement Update – Threat Levels Raised to ELEVATED.

  • The Physical Threat Level is “ELEVATED.” ELEVATED means that FB-ISAO is unaware of any specific threats, but there is concern that an event is more likely than normal. We are also closely monitoring events and are considering an escalation to “SEVERE,” meaning that an event is highly likely, but decided to not escalate to that level at this time.
  • The Cyber Threat Level is “ELEVATED.” ELEVATED means that FB-ISAO is unaware of any specific threats, but there is concern that an event is more likely than normal.

And see:

Quick Hits.

FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. Today, President Biden issued a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). The Executive Order establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more. As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s comprehensive strategy for responsible innovation, the Executive Order builds on previous actions the President has taken, including work that led to voluntary commitments from 15 leading companies to drive safe, secure, and trustworthy development of AI. Related article: Biden’s “aggressive” AI order will make firms share some test data

Risky Biz News: CitrixBleed vulnerability goes from bad to disastrous. A Citrix vulnerability has entered the dangerous stage of mass exploitation as multiple threat actors are compromising unpatched devices all over the internet in a race with each other to steal their session tokens. Known as CitrixBleed and tracked as CVE-2023-4966, the vulnerability impacts Citrix ADC and Citrix NetScaler, which are extremely complex networking devices used in large enterprise and government networks in multiple roles, such as gateways, proxies, caching, VPN servers, and a bunch of other stuff. The vulnerability allows threat actors to send junk data to the Citrix OpenID component that will crash and leak a part of the device’s memory. The bad part is that, in some cases, this memory may contain session tokens that attackers can collect and then bypass authentication and access the device. For a more technical explanation, check this write-up from Assetnote researchers. Citrix released patches to fix the CitrixBleed memory leak earlier this month, on October 10…The Shadowserver Foundation has also been following the attacks and how companies have been responding. Based on its internal data, the organization is still seeing almost 5,500 unpatched Citrix devices exposed on the internet.”

More Quick Hits:

Read more about Gate 15’s full podcast menu at our Podcast page. You can subscribe and enjoy all the Gate 15 Podcasts on Spotify for Podcasters, Apple, Spotify, Google, as well as other locations accessible from the Spotify for Podcasters link. Week-to-week, you can hear and learn more about our all-hazards threats, risks, mitigation and other issues impacting homeland security risk management from our team as well as our regular and special guests. The full podcast menu includes:

  • The Security Sprint is our weekly rundown of the week’s notable all-hazards security news, risks and threats and some of the key focus areas for organizations to consider behind the headlines. Gate 15 team members discuss physical security, cybersecurity, natural hazards, health threats and other issues across our environment.
  • Nerd Out! Security Panel Discussion, moderated by Dave Pounder, focuses on physical security topics including terrorism, extremism, hostile events, and other pertinent topics.
  • The Gate 15 Interview, is a monthly interview between Gate 15’s founder and Managing Director, Andy Jabbour and guests from throughout the homeland security risk management community addressing a wide range of all-hazards topics and issues.
  • The Cybersecurity Evangelist, with Jennifer Lyn Walker, is a cybersecurity-focused discussion with Jen and invited guests. This is presently a Gate 15 special podcast and occasionally is updated on our Gate 15 podcast channel.
  • The Risk Roundtable, was a monthly discussion among our team and occasional guests exploring the all-hazards threats and risks impacting the United States and internationally. This was suspended in September 2023.

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