Agencies, chamber partner together with free seminar to update community

By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Cyber crime is the No. 3 priority for the FBI right now and 2011 may go down as the worst year world-wide of systems security breaches, according to experts involved in a seminar in Brentwood on Tuesday.

The July 26 cyber security event -- free and open to the public (but reservations required) -- is presented complimentary by the Brentwood Cool Springs Chamber. It’s co-sponsored with the FBI and InfraGard, a partner with the FBI organized of business technology security experts, academics, law enforcement and others to share information and intelligence against hostile acts to the U.S.

It’s a hot topic, especially with the recent London tabloid hacking scandal and several cyber breaches earlier this year. In just one recent week, according to the seminar invitation, “Cyber criminals hacked Sony, circumvented Apple’s malware detection, stole sensitive data from RSA, breached Gmail and scammed Apple App Store customers.”

“We're concerned about terrorists getting into the infrastructure, we're concerned about foreign governments, some of them may be even hostile, getting into our corporate and government computer networks and stealing intellectual property,” said Scott Augenbaum, supervisory special agent of the FBI Memphis division who is based in Nashville.

“And we're very concerned about trans-national organized criminal enterprises getting into -- for example within Nashville, our robust financial services and healthcare sector which stores a lot of personal identifiable information.”

Not that many years ago, medical records for instance would be in a locked file cabinet in a locked room with security guards present. “Right now everything connected is through the Internet and hackers are trying to get into networks,” Augenbaum said.

Due to the ongoing cyber threats and in the 10 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has moved from being reactive and investigating after crimes are committed to being proactive and partnering with the public to help avert cyber attacks, he said.

“We have a lot of really good cooperation with the business community, but now we're trying to take it one step further and go from a level of cooperation to collaboration so we can share information and share intelligence,” Augenbaum said.

“These businesses out there are on the front line. They're the ones that are seeing this information in real time. … Sometimes it might be something that could be a random occurrence, or it could be something which could be a very well-coordinated attack.”

InfraGard, which has a strong chapter in Middle Tennessee, is one of those partnerships involving the business community to help educate, collaborate and protect the country’s infrastructure. The Business and Academic Alliance is another program sponsored by the FBI, which meets quarterly “with our strategic partners to discuss various issues involving security and counter intelligence and cyber matters such as computer intrusion.”

Know your network, have a disaster recovery plan in place

James Green, InfraGard’s local chapter president, says a general part of what he hopes to impart at Tuesday’s event are: 

“Assume nothing. Check your network. Know your network. Check on references. Get a second opinion. Fear for the worst. … Have a disaster recovery plan; when something goes wrong, what are you going to do? It's amazing some of these companies are multi-million dollars businesses and don't have an adequate disaster recovery plan. It sounds crazy but it does happen. People always say, ‘It's not going to happen to me. I can't imagine it happening to me’ -- till it does.”

Augenbaum will be joined Tuesday by some of his cyber squad’s subject-matter experts, who will explain signs that show networks aren’t secure. And Kevin Albano of Mandiant, an information security company providing services to the FBI, Fortune 500 companies and others, will address advance persistent threats (APTs) which send a steady withdrawal of information from business networks via encrypted channels back to hackers.

“My goal is not to have to meet any of these individuals as victims of crimes in the future,” Augenbaum said.

Green, with 25 years experience in information technology, said there must be vigilance to raise awareness of the technology security risks.

“No one is exempt and by no one I mean large corporations, medium and small business, even mom-and-pop organizations, even individuals such as they are hacking like cell phones… ” Green said.

While we “draw attention to the openness we have with our society, our life, and our technology we use -- the down side is we don't lock everything as tightly as it should be, simply because otherwise we wouldn't be able to use it as freely,” he added.

“Vigilante groups like this are making a point and they are very talented, and in cases like Anonymous even malicious.”

Hackers tend to be introverts, in world of technology

The FBI, which ranks cyber crime as third priority behind No. 1 terrorism and No. 2 counter-intelligence, has dedicated cyber crime squads in all 56 field offices throughout the United States. Bigger offices such as New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, have multiple cyber squads with subject-matter experts.

Augenbaum’s job now is a far cry from his original days as an agent in Syracuse, N.Y., after 1995 where he worked bank robbies, violent crime, drug cases and the like. On Wednesday he gave a presentation to 300 employees of for a large company on Internet safety.

“On a lot of these cases we have, once the money or the intellectual property leaves the network, a lot of times it's going overseas, making it very, very difficult and challenging and sometimes even impossible for us to get it back," the FBI agent said.

Green says hackers tend to be introverted, and "the world of technology is the only world they function in, it is their social network, it is their work -- what they get paid for whether it is legitimate or not, it is the world they'd rather deal with than actual reality.” Some become embittered with that altered reality because they don’t agree with the way things are done, he said.

Recalling an internal “intranet” even hacked way back in 1998 with malicious images, he said that some groups are now training people to hack from high school. And some other organizations around the world are doing that such as North Korea, the Russian Mafia, Iran and groups having to do with Al Queda, Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

And prosecution is difficult, especially in cases like a hacker in Indonesia who created one of the most malicious viruses ever – causing billions of dollars of damages world-wide. But the U.S. didn’t have extradition rights, plus it was legal in that country, Green said.

There also is for-profit computer intrusion including corporate sabotage, which is made easier these days by mobile technological devices, and other groups such as Anonymous trying to make a political or economic point.

“We've got multiple clients that the FBI is definitely working overtime to try to avert,” Green said. “ … It happens on an unreal scale, how often it happens.”

Breaches are often avoidable, Green added, recalling laptops stolen from the Metro-Nashville voting commission, which had no passwords, no encryption on data, and were missing several days before realizing it.

“If they had one method in case to protect those laptops, it would probably never happen. Instead they spent how many millions paying for different voters a year of identity theft protection,” Green said.

Cyber breach happened in 'our own backyard'

IntraGard member and seminar attendee Mark Brown, the information security officer Pinnacle Financial Partners, said he believes “2011 may go down as one of the worst years on record for cyber breach incidents.” Millions of records were lost at Sony, and even Oak Ridge National Laboratory in “our own backyard” was breached, he noted.

He says the cyber attacks are becoming “more sophisticated, stealthy and in many cases target individuals.” Associates should be trained to defend against external threats particularly “spear-phishing email attacks,” he added.

 “I think these incidents are becoming more frequent, and experts agree that they're important for us to stay on top of,” said Brown, part of Pinnacle’s risk and performance management team.

“I think the Chamber's response and support of events like this just shows their commitment to providing the best education to the Brentwood community and all the businesses that are represented in the Brentwood community, and that this topic is important.”

Brown said he believes both business and government benefit from shared information, education and experience offered through the InfraGard’s public-private partnership.

“As a large financial institution, I think it's important for Pinnacle to stay on top of cyber security threats. I think having accessibility to the FBI and their current research and their knowledge is vital to us to maintain a thorough understanding of that threat landscape,” he said.