PSN010 – Protec Attacks

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:30:48 +0000

We cover more cell phone blunders, Top Secret Twittering, revised BHMA standards, attacks on ABLOY Protec, and “ the unmask”. Also, LSI is looking for highly qualified security professionals to add to their staff of instructors.

Lockmasters Security Institute Approved by GSA

LSI has been certified by the General Services Administration (GSA) to train safe and vault technicians who service GSA approved security equipment. With an estimated 400,000 GSA containers in use today, this is an ideal course for any U.S. military, government & commercial locksmith.

In this intense 10 day course, students learn by opening locked containers using the approved methods of forced entry. They also learn about servicing, installing, diagnosing, troubleshooting, repairing and certifying GSA Locks, and GSA approved security containers.

Students leave the class with a specially created safe lock servicing tool kit and an extensive 700+ page reference manual that includes the latest specifications, regulations, neutralization techniques, security container identification, troubleshooting and much more. The reference manual itself weighs over ten pounds! Students who successfully complete the course also receive factory certifications and diplomas from LSI, Hamilton Products Group, & KABA Mas X09. All the GSA regulations and government forms required as part of servicing and inspection are available for download on the LSI website. See the show notes for the link.

Lockmasters Security Institute offers Methods of Entry for Law Enforcement

LSI, has partnered with the FBI-LEEDA organization, and created a class specifically for the Law Enforcement community. Methods of Entry is designed to familiarize officers with the tools and techniques used by today’s criminals to gain entry through locked doors. Offensive entry techniques for police are also addressed for lawful / court ordered entry.

This class has dual strategies. The offensive strategy is designed to familiarize law enforcement personnel with methods that can be used to carry out lawful or court ordered bypass techniques to open doors, bypass locks or bypass security systems. The class is designed to provide familiarity with tools common to the locksmithing and intelligence communities, but not generally known to the public.

The defensive strategy is designed to expose law enforcement personnel to tools and techniques used by criminals, and to aid in the identification of burglary tools.

This class is available to any sworn law enforcement officer and requires the agency to certify the need for this training.

In addition to the training, LSI offers a catalog of specialized entry support tools to aid Law Enforcement officers in gaining lawful/court ordered entry through locked doors. See the show notes for a link to the website.

Securitas USA Announces Asset Acquisition in Hawaii

Securitas Security Services USA, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of the Hawaiian commercial assets of Akal Security Inc. in a transaction scheduled to close on February 20, 2009. This transaction will include over 30 locations and over 300 security officers. The Akal press release notes that the sale does not include any of Akal’s Federal Government contracts, nor any of Akal’s business outside the state of Hawaii.

Akal is the largest provider of contract Judicial Security services, providing protection for federal courthouses in 40 states. Akal specializes in providing security for critical federal government facilities, state and local government agencies and military installations.

Securitas USA has an existing presence in Hawaii with 2,400 employees managed out of 6 branch offices. Headquartered in NJ, Securitas employs over 100,000 people. Services include uniformed security officers, mobile patrols, security consulting & investigations.

http://www.akalsecurity.com/

Digital SLR Camera Fits Into Nikon’s Microscope

On February 20, Nikon Vision Co Ltd will release the “Fabre Photo EX,” a portable stereoscopic microscope that can be fitted to a Nikon’s digital single-lens reflex camera. The announced price is about 1,200 US. A special bracket will allow event the modestly price series of Nikon Coolpix cameras to be attached. The product is rugged and intended for field observation, and industrial uses such as parts inspections. However it is clear that such a device has obvious uses to law enforcement for forensic investigations. Further, the price is low enough that it wont break even the most modest budget.

With one AA alkaline battery, the Fabre Photo EX can be operated for about ten hours. It is equipped with a white LED light for observation and photo shoot in a dim environment. The light can be switched between “OFF,” “One Light” and “Two Lights,” making it possible to adjust shading and brightness.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090204/165115/

Courts split over police searches of handhelds

This next story is outside our area of expertise, but it will be of interest to our friends in law enforcement & security management. The courts are split over police searches of handheld phones during traffic stops and subsequent arrests.

Anyone who owns a smart phone that can text, email & web browse knows all to well that the phone can contain a lot of personal and potentially damaging data. Apparently a warrant is needed to search a smartphone in

your home, but recent court decisions have not done much to clear up how such searches should be conducted in the field.

The Cnet News Politics & Law blog has details on the story and excerpts from some of the court decisions that might help in setting a policy to be used by your agency while this all shakes out. Given some of our recent stories about cell phones being the possible ’smoking gun’ in a crime, it would at least be prudent to sequester the phone in a shielded container to prevent the data from being destroyed remotely as we mentioned in show number 4 and show number 8.

Congressman twitters secret trip to Iraq

This story was all over the news recently, but we will cite the Cnet article written by Rafe Needleman as our source.

For security reasons, a recent congressional delegation Iraq was supposed to be secret. Even media outlets that knew of the trip kept a lid on the news.

According to the Twitter feed, Rep. Peter Hoekstra announced both his planned departure and his arrival into Baghdad.

It is unknown if Rep. Hoekstra broke any laws by revealing the trip, but the political blogs are fond of pointing out that such a security lapse is surprising for the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee.

The representative counter strikes on his website by pointing out that there is no such rule or policy regarding disclosure of the movements of a high profile delegation, and cites some examples of where some Democrats have not followed their own advice.

Of course the real news in all of this is that evidently you can now get BlackBerry data service in Baghdad. Who knew?

Seriously though, what can we learn form this? This kind of slip up could have been disastrous for both the delegation and their military escorts. It is just common sense to keep details of travel into danger zones off the internet.

We have spoken before about the hazards of cell phones in the workplace. Besides hindering productivity, they may be equipped with data gathering technologies that early James Bonds would have only dreamed of. They can record conversations both on and off the phone. They can take both still and motion pictures of your company secrets. They have access to your corporate VPN. And many can act as portable storage devices connected like a thumb drive to a USB port on a network computer. Armed with email and web access, your stolen data can be sent out of the building in record time. Now we add the public disclosure of company information, or in this case, the location of high profile targets, on a global social network, that by its very nature is designed to appeal to the masses, and you have a situation that essentially creates jobs security for those of us in the security industry. Hmmm, maybe its not so bad after all.

One final note, if you use a Blackberry, I suggest you stay in touch with their support website. Because of the popularity of this device it has become a target for hackers who are bored with attacking Windows Computers, there are now several exploits against the Blackberry that could result in your having a very bad day.

In door hardware news. . .

BHMA Issues Revised Standards.

The Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association recently published revised standards for Exit Devices, Door control Closers, and Auxiliary Hardware. BHMA is the only organization accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop and maintain performance standards for locks, closers, exit devices and other builders hardware.

The revised standards can be purchased online from buildershardware.com in either printed or electronic format. I highly recommend the complete set to anyone that specifies, sells or installs builders hardware.

Unlocking the ABLOY Protec

The Abloy Protec key cylinder has been under attack recently, mostly on YouTube. Last December a video was posted demonstrating a new tool and how it is used to mill off the face of the cylinder so the disks can be extracted and decoded to make a key. It is a destructive entry technique however the repair to the customer would be to replace the drilled cylinder with a new one.

A second video was posted a few days ago titled Abloy Protec Decode. It shows a demonstration of a decoding method however the video is lacking audio and a clear explanation of what is being done. Further, much of the manipulation is done just outside the camera filed of view. None the less, the author of the video has vigorously defended his claim on the popular locksport blog Blackbag hosted by Barry Wels.

Time will tell if this technique proves successful. See the show notes for the links to the videos.

http://blackbag.nl/?p=319

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiZOURhFnUI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj4myR2XlWc

Unmasking your face

I just couldn’t help but laugh when I discovered this next story. An artist by the name of Andrew Salomone has solved the problem that snow skiers have of looking like a hold up guy because they are wearing a full face balaclava when skiing in cold weather. Using his technique you can wear your warm balaclava, but without masking your true identity. The steps to making his Identity Preserving Balaclava are detailed on the website “ instructables”.

Simply stated, he starts with 6 pictures of a persons head. He takes a picture of the front, back, left, right, top, and shoulder to neck. Using imaging editing software he scales the pictures to full size and prints them onto iron on t shirt transfer material. Now you can probably see where this is going. The next step is to iron the transfer onto some cloth and then trim, arrange, and sew the pieces of cloth into a full face mask.

I wonder how long it will take the bad guys to adopt this full face mask technique to impersonate someone else while committing a crime..

http://www.instructables.com/id/Identity_Preserving_Balaclava_all_the_warmth_with/

LSI is hiring

Our final story for the day is good news, Lockmasters Security Institute is looking for instructors. Thats right, if you are looking for a new position, and have extensive experience in the locksmith and physical security, and you enjoy sharing your knowledge with others, then we want to talk to you today. Please call our toll free number, (866) 574-8724, and ask for Deanna Deborde on extension 213.

And so ends this 10th episode of Pro Security News. We covered a lot of topics in this show. The links to all the original stories and research articles are included in the show notes.

If you have any questions about any of the topics discussed today, or if you have a technical question you need an answer for, send me an email at info at prosecurity news dot com. I will answer both via email, and on the show so others can learn.

If you wish to praise or condemn the show, please drop us a note at info at pro security news dot com. We can’t improve if we don’t know what’s bugging you. If you enjoy the show please consider giving us a rating on iTunes and Zune.

PSN010E – Protec Attacks

admin — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:13:17 +0000

(Enhanced Podcast) We cover more cell phone blunders, Top Secret Twittering, revised BHMA standards, attacks on ABLOY Protec, and “the unmask”. Also, LSI is looking for highly qualified security professionals to add to their staff of instructors.

This is the enhanced version of the podcast with embedded images and chapter markers much like a DVD. See PSN010 for the show links and the full text of the podcast.

PSN008E – Dangerous USB, Covert Cameras and Monster Shredders

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:16:25 +0000

(Enhanced Podcast) In this episode we look at 10 items in the news including why the Dod has temporarily banned the use of USB thumb drives, how mobile phones can be the ’smoking gun’, how Ford trucks can go on-line, about how the Kwikset Smartkey is pickproof, bump proof, and has record sales, a high tech ATM debit card skimmer, home made drug smuggling submarines, some sneaky covert cameras, and a shredder that eats engine blocks for breakfast.

This is the enhanced version of the podcast with embedded images and chapter markers much like a DVD. See PSN008 for the show links and the full text of the podcast.

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