The Russian hack never happened

An American contractor says hackers did not launch a cyber attack against a water facility in central Illinois.

Rather, Jim Mimlitz explains, the false alarm was triggered when he logged onto the system while vacationing in Russia with his wife and three daughters.

Still, Mimlitz is uncertain why the DHS failed to contact him about the incident, which likely would have helped resolve the issue immediately.



Instead, US law enforcement officials assumed his password was stolen by hackers who accessed the system from Russia, supposedly causing a water pump to shut down five months later. 

The alleged Russian-water pump link was first noted by a repairman examining the logs who saw a Russian IP address attached to a remote login by Mimlitz. 



The incident was reported to a state agency, leading to the involvement of the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center and prompting reports of the first successful cyberattack on US infrastructure.

"A quick and simple phone call to me right away would have defused the whole thing immediately," Mimlitz told the Associated Press. 



"All I did was I logged on. I tried to help. I looked at some data and gave them my advice."



Although the DHS declined to comment on the latest developments, the department reiterated an earlier statement which said there was "no evidence to support claims made" in the initial report, as it "was based on raw, unconfirmed data and subsequently leaked to the media."

Meanwhile, Mimlitz said the Navionics system he helped install in the Illinois water plant was "very secure," despite recent reports claiming that Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are vulnerable to hacking.

["But] we're going to keep working on it," he added.





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Smartphones Hacking - Challenge for Business

An anticipated upsurge in smartphone  hacking will present a real challenge for businesses in 2012 but businesses can do more to prevent unauthorised access to important information, according to University of Ulster academic and internet security expert,  Dr Kevin Curran.

Dr Curran, who is a reader in the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems at Magee and Senior Member of the IEEE - the world's largest technical professional association - says simple steps like creating strong secure passwords and updating phone software can help guarantee security ofbusiness and personal information.

He says that people are generally aware of the cyber-security threatsassociated with PCs and laptops but don't see their smartphones as computers and subject to the same threats.

"With more people using the same phone for business and personal reasons,the upsurge in smartphone hacking presents a real issue for businesses aswell as consumers. A company can have all appropriate firewalls in place,but it takes just one employee to download malware onto their phone. In fact, with more senior employees using phones for work, it is likely to be top executives who are exposing businesses to vulnerabilities.

"Smartphone  users represent approximately 20 percent of the mobile marke so expect to see an explosion in smartphone  attacks, both by technical experts and by novices buying tools from 'dark' websites and conducting low-tech but effective scams. It only takes a couple seconds to steal personal information but it can have a devastating impact.

According to Curran, a 'trusted app' approach is needed to combat hackers, something he hopes can be in place by 2013  – but he expects that the upsurge in hacking via mobile phones may prompt the industry and governments to act sooner.

All smartphones - phones with full HTML internet browser and e-mail capabilities - are vulnerable to hacking but some are more vulnerable than others, says Curran.

He explains that Android phones are a specific type of smartphone which use an operating system designed by Google to compete against Aople's iPhone and RiM's Blackberry.

A recent study "The Most Vulnerable Smartphones of 2011,"  (Bit9's November21), claims that more than half of the Android phones in the marketplace today are running out-of-date and insecure versions of the Android operating system – which make them easy prey for hackers.

"Carriers are more focused on the latest version of the phone than on providing security updates for older models – and this increases their vulnerability to hacking," said Dr Curran.

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