US DoD staffer with top-secret clearance stole identities from work systems to apply for loans
- Reference: 1643326867
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/01/27/dod_sharepoint_apple_white_house/
- Source link:
Kevin Lee, 41, of Chula Vista, southern California, [1]pleaded guilty on Wednesday to wire fraud.
Lee, who worked for Uncle Sam's Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) as an analyst, raided the organization's Microsoft SharePoint system for people's private data to pull off his nefarious scheme. It's said that he applied for and was able to get as much as $244,500 in loans under other people's names to cover his own debts, personal expenses, and bills.
[2]
The IT system was home to files on DCMA staff and those in contact with the agency – including DoD employees and contractors.
[3]
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Over a two-year period, starting in September 2018, Lee harvested personal information – including social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and government employment forms – on at least 37 people, according to prosecutors. Lee used these details to create fake IDs, which were in turn used with fabricated pay stubs, bank statements, and tax documents to apply for loans. Lee also created Google email and voice accounts in his victims' names to prop up his scam.
For example, according to prosecutors, Lee created a Gmail account to masquerade as one of his colleagues and, using data pulled from the DCMA 360 SharePoint site, in March 2020 applied for at least eight bank accounts and loans as his victim. Three loans were approved. Lee even crafted a fake Arizona driver's license to support his ruse.
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"The identity theft and fraud in this case is particularly egregious because Mr Lee violated that public trust for his own selfish ends," said US Attorney Randy Grossman. "Those who engage in fraud and identity theft will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Lee, who held a Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS-SCI) clearance, will be sentenced in April. He faces up to 20 years behind bars.
iOS, macOS security hole reportedly exploited, now patched
Apple this week patched a large number of security vulnerabilities, at least one of which is being exploited in the wild. Here's a summary of what's been fixed:
[6]Safari 15.3 – The IndexedDB privacy bug (CVE-2022-22594) that can [7]spill details of sites you've visited to malicious web pages has been fixed, as well as three other holes in the browser's WebKit engine.
[8]macOS Big Sur 11.6.3 – Seven flaws, one of which (CVE-2022-22587 in IOMobileFrameBuffer) is reportedly being exploited by malicious applications on some Apple devices to gain kernel-level control.
[9]macOS Monterey 12.2 – Thirteen bugs, including CVE-2022-22587 that's been reportedly exploited in the wild, a hole in Crash Reporter that can give apps root-level access (CVE-2022-22578), flaws in Intel and AMD drivers that bad applications can use to get kernel-level control, and the IndexedDB vuln.
[10]Security Update 2022-001 Catalina – Five vulnerabilities, including one (CVE-2022-22593) that can be exploited by bad apps to gain kernel-level access to the system.
[11]tvOS 15.3 – Nine flaws including the IndexedDB and Crash Reporter vulns.
[12]iOS 15.3 and iPadOS 15.3 – Ten flaws, including CVE-2022-22587 and the IndexedDB hole.
[13]watchOS 8.4 – Eight bugs, including the IndexedDB hole and CVE-2022-22593.
These updates ought to be installed as soon as possible. In addition, Apple says [14]it has fixed its CloudKit backend that was, as 9to5Mac reported, [15]breaking iCloud syncing.
Also, iPadOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 betas [16]released this week include a Universal Control feature that allows you to control multiple Macs and iPads from a single mouse and keyboard. And Face ID in the iOS 15.4 beta will try to work even when you're wearing a mask.
Biden administration moves to beef up government IT security
The US government is on a bit of a cybersecurity spree at the moment. The White House has [17]told federal organizations [PDF] to adopt a [18]zero-trust strategy , in which computer systems should not assume a user or device can be trusted just because it's within a network (see Mr Kevin Lee, above). And stuff outside the network can't be automatically trusted, either. This strategy should be adopted by the end of 2024.
This means US federal government IT departments need to have the necessary authentication mechanisms in place to validate and track everything and everyone using Uncle Sam's computing resources. The Biden administration also [19]said it will extend its Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative to the water sector, to give that industry a boost in digital defenses.
Also, NIST has updated its [20]document titled Assessing Security and Privacy Controls in Information Systems and Organizations. As the name suggests, it's useful guidance for anyone auditing the security defenses of IT systems and deploying countermeasures to thwart miscreants.
And finally …
Trend Micro has [21]analyzed the Linux and VMware ESXi variant of the LockBit ransomware that emerged toward the end of last year.
Crowdstrike has [22]taken a look at StellarParticle, an espionage campaign linked to [23]Cozy Bear and the SolarWinds intrusion.
[24]
And Microsoft has warned of a [25]device registration trick used by miscreants to infiltrate Azure Active Directory deployments. Basically, intruders break into one account that doesn't have multi-factor authentication enabled – typically by using a stolen password – and then join a device to the Azure AD to drill further into the network. ®
Get our [26]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/former-government-employee-admits-stealing-identities-37-individuals-bank-and-loan
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YfN4h0YfApU7gCz7iNpysAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YfN4h0YfApU7gCz7iNpysAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YfN4h0YfApU7gCz7iNpysAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YfN4h0YfApU7gCz7iNpysAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213058
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/21/apple_safari_webkit_indexeddb/
[8] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213055
[9] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213054
[10] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213056
[11] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213057
[12] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213053
[13] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213059
[14] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/694496?answerId=702565022#702565022
[15] https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/24/icloud-syncing-issues-are-plaguing-third-party-apps-as-apple-stays-silent/
[16] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/27/universal-control-monterey-12-3-beta/
[17] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/M-22-09.pdf
[18] https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2022/01/26/office-of-management-and-budget-releases-federal-strategy-to-move-the-u-s-government-towards-a-zero-trust-architecture/
[19] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/27/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-expands-public-private-cybersecurity-partnership-to-water-sector/
[20] https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-53a/rev-5/final
[21] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/22/a/analysis-and-Impact-of-lockbit-ransomwares-first-linux-and-vmware-esxi-variant.html
[22] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/observations-from-the-stellarparticle-campaign/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/solarwinds_fireeye_cozybear_us_government/
[24] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YfN4h0YfApU7gCz7iNpysAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[25] https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/01/26/evolved-phishing-device-registration-trick-adds-to-phishers-toolbox-for-victims-without-mfa/
[26] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Problem spotted
"Using SharePoint."
FTFY. =-J
Re: Problem spotted
When you use the classified networks at the DoD you basically remote desktop in from the unclassified network, or at least that was my experience when I consulted for the Defense Logistics Agency about 15 years ago. Security is enforced by the fact the network is isolated aside from those gateways. Actual routing between classified and unclassified outside of that is likely extremely limited (I wasn't exposed to that end of it) and I very much doubt anything at all can reach the internet directly from it, let alone be allowed in from it.
So it doesn't matter so much if they use something "insecure" on the classified network, as they are more reliant on the vetting they do before handing out security clearances - and moreso the penalties for violating them since that vetting is far from perfect. I'm sure there is tons of monitoring of what you're doing, which while also far from perfect is also more of a "I don't even want to try anything because I'm afraid of the consequences if I got caught" sort of deal. I was very careful to never look at anything I didn't need to and knew I was entitled to!
Also I was only exposed to Secret and Top Secret levels, there are all kinds of special classification levels above that which are probably only accessible on a DoD installation or some cases from SCIFs that are basically locked and guarded Faraday cages where the REAL secrets are kept. I can't really speak to that end as I only know what I was told by others who had been involved with it, it sounded like way too much of a pain to me! I think classification works like grade inflation, so few real secrets are kept at the standard levels, everything that matters is above Top Secret. I mean, IP addresses of individual servers were classified "Secret" just to give you an example of the silliness - what I was doing didn't expose me to ANYTHING I would consider important to the security of the US, though obviously whoever classified those things had a different opinion.
You might do a little exploring on a typical corporate network, but with all the paperwork you sign promising long prison terms when you get a security clearance to access a classified DoD network, you don't fuck around if you have half a brain.
Dont use Ransomware targets
Stop using WindBlows for high security and mission critical infrastructure!
The commander in chief
Owed $1.3Bn to Russian investors at a German bank - how did he get a security clearance?
Problem spotted
Using SharePoint for classified documentation --->