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ARTICLES

• Agencies increase adoption of e-travel services
• Latest cybersecurity threat lies in trusted software and hardware
• Security glitch slows early arrivals at Democratic convention
• DHS to use controversial centers during political conventions

TECH INSIDER
What’s being discussed in the federal IT community

• Can You Trust Your Database?
• Malicious Thumb Drives in Justice

WEB HEADLINES
IT news from around the Web

ARTICLES

• Agencies increase adoption of e-travel services
  BY JILL R. AITORO, JAITORO@GOVEXEC.COM

  Agencies are moving slowly toward deploying Web-based travel management services to reduce the time and cost it takes employees to apply for and receive approval for travel.

  Comment on this article in The Forum.Under President Bush’s E-Gov Travel Service, agencies were to be using an automated travel management system by the end of 2006. But the transformation has been slow as agencies train employees to use the new applications. “You’re dealing with change management,” said Kay Levy, director of customer service in the office of the chief financial officer at the Agriculture Department.

  As of March 31, 2008, 10 out of the 24 largest agencies had fully deployed on E-Gov Travel, and another 10 agencies were in the process of migrating. In addition, of the 2.9 million government travel vouchers issued, more than 367,000 were serviced through the E-Gov Travel initiative. Once it’s fully deployed, the initiative is expected to cut federal travel management costs by as much as 50 percent.

  Full story: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080826_1643.php?zone=itsecurity
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• Latest cybersecurity threat lies in trusted software and hardware
  BY GAUTHAM NAGESH, GNAGESH@GOVEXEC.COM

  An e-mail the Justice Department sent in July warning employees about thumb drives left in offices and pre-loaded with software that could steal information from a computer is the latest example of a new cybersecurity threat that involves seemingly innocuous hardware devices.

  Comment on this article in The Forum.Security personnel from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys found two USB thumb drives containing malicious code last month that were left unattended in Justice’s offices in Downtown Washington, according to an e-mail obtained by Nextgov last week. If inserted into a computer, the thumb drives would secretly capture certain information and send it to an undisclosed computer outside Justice, according to the July e-mail. The thumb drives were left where any department employee or contractor could find them.

  It’s unclear whether the stashed thumb drives were part of a security training exercise at Justice or if it was a legitimate threat. The department declined to comment on the incident, but the e-mail raises questions about how easy it would be for hackers to penetrate the defenses of federal agencies.

  Full story: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080825_7185.php?zone=itsecurity
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Brought to you by NextGov.com

• Security glitch slows early arrivals at Democratic convention
  BY MARILYN WERBER SERAFINI AND JOHN MAGGS, NATIONAL JOURNAL

  DENVER — Security for the Democratic National Convention got off to an inauspicious start Saturday as news media and convention staff endured an hours-long bottleneck at the single gate, manned by the Secret Service and the Denver police, allowing entry into the secured area around the Pepsi Center.

  Comment on this article in The Forum.The problems were solved after a few hours at the 9th Street entrance and the lines shortened to about five minutes by 3:30 pm. But as the police and the media traded blame for the snafu, it wasn’t clear whether the incident presaged future problems.

  Malcolm Wiley, spokesman for the Secret Service, said that security officials unwisely chose to channel news media, many carrying large amounts of electronic equipment, through the same three metal detectors that were being used to clear official DNC staff. “Once we determined that this was happening, we were able to separate out the DNC staff and things moved much more smoothly,” Wiley said.

  Full story: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080825_4577.php?zone=itsecurity
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• DHS to use controversial centers during political conventions
  BY JILL R. AITORO, JAITORO@GOVEXEC.COM

  The Homeland Security Department is working with state and local governments in Colorado and Minnesota to support the sharing of information during the national conventions next week, relying on so-called fusion centers, which civil liberties groups have opposed as bordering on domestic spying.

  The Office of Intelligence and Analysis will provide support to state and local governments to help groups connect and exchange data during the Democratic and Republican national conventions,taking place in Denver and Minneapolis, respectively, according to DHS. The office plans to provide support from its Washington headquarters to existing fusion centers in the two cities, which will collect and analyze reports of suspicious activity. DHS also will provide on-site support to both fusion centers.

  The centers, which have sprouted up in almost every state, collect information on terrorist threats from numerous sources, including criminal investigations, the media and tips from the public. They then “fuse” it to create a fuller picture of potential threats in their area. The 9/11 commission that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks promoted the fusion-center concept, and U.S. homeland-security and intelligence officials regard them as providing well-sourced information that federal agents can’t match.

  Full story: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080822_7249.php?zone=itsecurity
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TECH INSIDER
What’s being discussed in the federal IT community

• Can You Trust Your Database?
  BY ALLAN HOLMES  |  8/22/08  |  5:05 P.M. ET

  From the “technology is only as good as the user” file:

  The Texas Department of Public Safety recently complained that counties fail to update the state’s criminal database, which prosecutors and law enforcement use to check on an individual’s criminal history and which agencies and businesses use to conduct criminal background checks on applicants. Counties input just 69 percent of criminal charges into the system, according to an assessment reported on by The Dallas Morning News. The paper reported:

  Read More: http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2008/08/can_you_trust_your_database.php
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• Malicious Thumb Drives in Justice
  BY ALLAN HOLMES  |  8/20/08  |  5:10 P.M. ET

  A group e-mail sent by the security department at the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in Washington, and recently obtained by Nextgov, illustrates just how much access hackers may have to supposedly high-secure government office buildings.

  According to the July 9 e-mail, which was sent to office staff and contractors with the subject head “Malicious Thumb Drives,” security officials said that they had found two stray thumb drives on the ninth floor of the Bicentennial Building on E Street in Downtown Washington, where the U.S. Attorneys Executive Office operates. The drives, one found in the men’s restroom and another on a facsimile machine, would, once attached to a computer, secretly steal “certain system information” off the computer and transmit it out of the Justice Department. The e-mail read:

  Read More: http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2008/08/malicious_thumb_drives_in_just.php
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WEB HEADLINES
IT news from around the Web

• Headlines from around the Web for AUGUST 21 - 27, 2008
  Compiled by Melanie BenderSBInet faces construction delays
  Federal Computer Week
  Budget concerns and the need to test the technology in the laboratory are likely to delay the deployment of SBInet, the Homeland Security Department’s multibillion-dollar border-surveillance system, for four or five months, said Michael Friel, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

  Airport fast pass lets Redskins fans cut security line
  Wired Blog Network
  Starting this season, Washington Redskins fans can apply for a $100 pass that lets them jump to the front of the security line at 19 airports around the country ? and get them into Redskins football games ahead of their fellow tailgaters. Flo, a Registered Traveler company behind the offer, also is working with the Baltimore Ravens to offer the same services starting in 2009.

  Reported data breaches exceed last year’s
  The Washington Post
  Identity Theft Resource Center of San Diego found that 449 U.S. businesses, government agencies and universities have reported a loss or theft of consumer data this year. Last year, the center tallied 446 breaches involving 127 million consumer records. About 90 million of those records were attributed to a single retail chain, TJX, which operates T.J. Maxx stores.

  DNS security steps ordered by OMB
  Government Computer News
  Government agencies must take new measures by January 2009 to ensure the Domain Name System security extensions on top level .gov Web site domains are signed, and that processes for securing sub-domains are developed, according to a memorandum released today by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The top level .gov domain includes the registrar, registry and DNS server operations.

  Homeland Security comes to Vermont
  The Washington Post
  Derby Line, a small town that sits squarely on the U.S.-Canada border, is home to a mix of U.S. and Canadian citizens. But now, as Homeland Security seeks to implement its Secure Border Initiative in the town, the border between the two countries has become visible and the comingling of citizens could very well be fading.

  New York’s data defender
  Governing
  Will Pelgrin, head of New York’s cyber security bureau ? an office separate from the state’s IT department ? does not have an easy job. In addition to protecting the state’s networks from cyberattack and managing whatever damage might arise, Pelgrin and his staff plan for how the state will recover from a disaster and how to keep the state’s IT systems secure in an emergency.

  Reformed hacker looks back
  Forbes
  Viewed as the poster boy for hacker threat in the mid ’90s, Kevin Mitnick spent 5 years in jail for sneaking into and stealing code from networks including those belonging to Sun Microsystems, Motorola, and Fujitsu. Now 45, Mitnick has reinvented himself as a security consultant, performing the same cyber-intrusions to suss out flaws in companies’ defenses.

  Manufacturer admits voting-machine flaws
  Seattle Times/Associated Press
  Premier Election Solutions, a major voting-machine maker, has cautioned its customers in 34 states, including Washington, to look out for a programming error that may cause votes to be dropped. When machine errors caused at least 1,000 votes to be dropped in a handful of Ohio elections in 2006, the company said complications with the anti-virus software had caused the problems, but in a statement issued Thursday, Premier claimed the problem resides in the machines themselves.

  Ohio counties move to secure voting machine delivery
  Government Technology
  Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Tuesday unveiled secure voting machine delivery instructions for all Ohio counties. The directive transitions counties away from storing voting machines in poll worker’s homes, work places or automobiles before an election.

  New guidelines would give FBI broader powers
  The New York Times
  A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion. A few Democratics were alarmed by what they learned, saying new guidelines would allow the FBI to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.”

  Terror watch-listed fliers can sue, appeals court rules
  Wired Blog Network
  Airline passengers on the government’s no-fly list can sue the government to get their names removed, according to a federal appeals court ruling on Monday that swept aside complicated judicial rules that insulated the government from lawsuits over the sprawling list of suspected terrorists. The decision marks the first time that an individual has been allowed to use the court ? rather than a form mailed to a Homeland Security office ? to contest their inclusion in the nation’s secret anti-terrorism database.

  Fighting identity theft with analytics
  eWeek
  Security vendor Guardian Analytics is using behavioral modeling to prevent online identity theft and bank fraud. The small security vendor is entering a crowded market for authentication technologies and is banking on its ability to build models based on user behavior to predict user activity and thereby detect fraud.

  Defense now accepts electronic IDs issued by contractors
  Federal Times
  Defense Department communications networks are accepting the secure electronic identities of contractors’ employees that are issued by their companies. Before the Defense Department put the new policy in place July 22, it accepted only common access cards issued by Defense or credentials issued to contractors under a special arrangement with the departmentfrom one of three approved outside vendors.

  Citizens’ U.S. border crossings tracked
  The Washington Post
  The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations.

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