maxomai: dog (dog)
(Bruce Schneier is the author of Applied Cryptography and the inventor of several military-grade cryptographic algorithms, including Blowfish and Twofish.)

Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] bruce_schneier at Terrorist Risks by City, According to Actual Data

I don't know enough about the methodology to judge it, but it's interesting:



In total, 64 cities are categorised as 'extreme risk' in Verisk Maplecroft's new Global Alerts Dashboard (GAD), an online mapping and data portal that logs and analyses every reported terrorism incident down to levels of 100m² worldwide. Based on the intensity and frequency of attacks in the 12 months following February 2014, combined with the number and severity of incidents in the previous five years, six cities in Iraq top the ranking. Over this period, the country's capital, Baghdad, suffered 380 terrorist attacks resulting in 1141 deaths and 3654 wounded, making it the world's highest risk urban centre, followed by Mosul, Al Ramadi, Ba'qubah, Kirkuk and Al Hillah.

Outside of Iraq, other capital cities rated 'extreme risk' include Kabul, Afghanistan (13th most at risk), Mogadishu, Somalia (14th), Sana'a, Yemen (19th) and Tripoli, Libya (48th). However, with investment limited in conflict and post-conflict locations, it is the risk posed by terrorism in the primary cities of strategic economies, such as Egypt, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan that has the potential to threaten business and supply chain continuity.



A news article:



According to the index, which ranks world cities by the likelihood of a terror attack based on historic trends, 64 cities around the world are at "extreme risk" of a terror attack.

Of these, the majority are in the Middle East (27) or Asia (19).

Some 14 are in Africa, where the rise of Boko Haram and al-Shabaab as well as political instability have increased risk.



Three are in Europe -- Luhansk (46) and Donetsk (56) in Ukraine, and Grozy (54) in Russia -- while Colombia's Cali (59) is the only South American city on the list.



No US city makes the list.

maxomai: dog (dog)
Editorial: Bruce Schneier is one of the most trusted names in computer security. He literally wrote the book on Applied Cryptography. Until recently, he was the Chief Security Officer at British Telecom, and he recently joined as Chief Technology Officer for a startup, Co3Systems. His opinion carries a lot of weight in the security world, which is part of the reason why his critiques of the US National Security effort after 9/11 has been so damning.

Below, we are shown an example of how the NSA has exploited a commonly used firewall appliance.

By the way - if the NSA has this exploit, so does everyone to whom the NSA has divulged the details of this exploit, willingly or unwillingly, officially or unofficially.

--maxomai

Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] bruce_schneier at HALLUXWATER: NSA Exploit of the Day

Today's implant from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog:



HALLUXWATER

(TS//SI//REL) The HALLUXWATER Persistence Back Door implant is installed on a target Huawei Eudemon firewall as a boot ROM upgrade. When the target reboots, the PBD installer software will find the needed patch points and install the back door in the inbound packet processing routine.



Once installed, HALLUXWATER communicates with an NSA operator via the TURBOPANDA Insertion Tool (PIT), giving the operator covert access to read and write memory, execute an address, or execute a packet.



HALLUXWATER provides a persistence capability on the Eudemon 200, 500, and 1000 series firewalls. The HALLUXWATER back door survives OS upgrades and automatic bootROM upgrades.



Status: (U//FOUO) On the shelf, and has been deployed.



Page, with graphics, is here. General information about TAO and the catalog is here.



In the comments, feel free to discuss how the exploit works, how we might detect it, how it has probably been improved since the catalog entry in 2008, and so on.



This one is a big deal politically. For years we have been telling the Chinese not to install hardware back doors into Hauwei switches. Meanwhile, we have been doing exactly that. I wouldn't want to have been the State Department employee to receive that phone call.

maxomai: dog (Default)
So, it's been eleven years.

Are we ready to have that adult conversation about why our former MENA allies might be pissed off enough to do something like 9/11 to us?

No? Not yet?

Didn't think so.
maxomai: dog (Default)
So, it's been eleven years.

Are we ready to have that adult conversation about why our former MENA allies might be pissed off enough to do something like 9/11 to us?

No? Not yet?

Didn't think so.

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