I went and played my first round of golf yesterday…and boy am I sore. I probably won’t be posting a SBR next weekend as I’ll be busy at SANS Toronto 2008. If you’re there then please pull me aside and say hello.

Here is the list:

Virtual server sprawl highlights security concerns – This is a security risk that management really needs to be made aware of.

Think server sprawl is bad now? Just wait till you experience virtual server sprawl. When users can clone a virtual machine with the click of a mouse, or save versions of applications and operating systems for later use, you’re asking for trouble if IT doesn’t maintain tight control, virtualization management vendor Embotics warned in a session at Interop Las Vegas Tuesday. (Look through our slideshow at other products shown at Interop.)

Interpol: Olympics cyberattack not a major threat – I’m still not convinced. I think that the Olympics would be a prime political target to make a statement.

The main concern for the Olympic Games is the physical security of the visitors who are going to China and to avoid any terrorism attack. Of course, Interpol is involved in the security of the Olympic Games and we are in a close relationship with the authorities. We are going to provide access to our global databases. We will send a team which will be connected to the Interpol network. We have already trained people.

But of the time being, we are providing threat assessment for the Olympic Games and we did not detect a main threat regarding cybercrime. It would maybe be an attack on a small network regarding the tickets.

The Hunt for the Kill Switch – How scary is the thought of this?

Last September, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear installation in northeastern Syria. Among the many mysteries still surrounding that strike was the failure of a Syrian radar—supposedly state-of-the-art—to warn the Syrian military of the incoming assault. It wasn’t long before military and technology bloggers concluded that this was an incident of electronic warfare—and not just any kind.

Post after post speculated that the commercial off-the-shelf microprocessors in the Syrian radar might have been purposely fabricated with a hidden “backdoor” inside. By sending a preprogrammed code to those chips, an unknown antagonist had disrupted the chips’ function and temporarily blocked the radar.

88,000 Patients at Risk After Computer Theft – Tsk, Tsk…should have protected the data better.

Staten Island University Hospital is alerting patients about a December 07 equipment theft. Thieves made off with a desktop computer and backup hard drive from an administrative office in Rosebank. This equipment contained names, Social Security numbers and health insurance numbers on 88,000 SIUH patients. According to a statement from the hospital, letters are being sent to affected individuals and the hospital is offer one year of free credit monitoring. SIUH spokesperson Arleen Ryback said that the equipment does not contain any medical records but would not comment on why it took SIUH so long to notify patients.

Radio Free Europe hit by DDoS attack – Ironic that a CIA sponsored project, started to prevent the spread of Communism during the cold war, wasn’t better prepared to deal with an attack.

Websites run by Radio Free Europe have been under a fierce cyber attack that coincided with coverage over the weekend of a rally organized by opposition to the Belarusian government.

The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack initially targeted only the RFE’s Belarus service, which starting on Saturday was inundated with as many as 50,000 fake pings every second, according the this RFE account. On Monday, it continued to be affected. At least seven other RFE sites for Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Tatar-Bashkir, Farda, South Slavic, Russia and Tajikistan, were also attacked but have mostly been brought back online.

UCSF Patient Information Available Online – Tsk, tsk again.

The University of California, San Francisco is alerting patients after personal patient information connected with the university was found online. In October of 2007, UCSF became aware that patient information the university had shared with Target America Inc. to help identify potential donors was available online. The information available included the names, addresses, names of departments where patient received care and in some cases patient medical record numbers and physicians providing care on 6,313 UCSF patients. UCSF took immediate action to remove public access to the data once it was aware of the incident. In addition, UCSF ended the business agreement it had with Trade America shortly after the incident was discovered. UCSF is mailed notification letters to the affected patients in April. It is not known why UCSF waited so long to notify patients about the exposure.

Botnet attacks military systems – I wonder just how much spam you would have to receive before you considered it an “attack”? I get around 300-400 per day right now 🙂

Security researchers have discovered a complex spamming scheme that hijacks users’ PCs in order to attempt to send junk mail via university and military systems.

Researchers at Romania-based BitDefender said the scheme, based on a backdoor called Edunet, was one of the most complicated and mysterious they’ve come across.

Stepped Up Cyber Role for Spy Agencies – I suspect that this has been going on for years but the government is probably making it public as a token offering to show their “commitment to fighting the great cyber threat”.

America’s spy agencies for the first time would be tasked with gathering intelligence on threats to the nation’s computer networks under a policy set to be detailed by the White House next week, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Speaking at a security conference in Washington, the official said the Bush administration wants to harness the intelligence community’s offensive capabilities in defense of government and civilian computer systems

Cubans able to shop for PCs – Good for residents of Cuba. I’m glad to see that things are starting to turn around down there.

Personal computers have gone on sale to the general public in Cuba for the first time.

President Raul Castro’s government authorized the sale of computers to average Cubans more than a month ago, but they are only now arriving on store shelves.

Personnel computers are the latest in a growing list of measures the younger brother of long time leader Fidel Castro has taken to make life easier for ordinary Cubans.

China mounts cyber attacks on Indian sites – I’d be interested to see the logs and traffic to determine their capabilities and attack vectors.

China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability.