Homeland Security Science & Technology at the University of the District of Columbia

Monday, July 27, 2015

Bomb-proof lining contains explosion in aircraft’s luggage hold

Published 27 July 2015

A bomb-proof lining developed by an international team of scientists has successfully contained blasts in a series of controlled explosions in the luggage hold of a Boeing 747 and an Airbus 321. The Fly-Bag, which lines an aircraft’s luggage hold with multiple layers of novel fabrics and composites, was tested last week under increasing explosive charges on disused planes. The tests, using this technology, have demonstrated that a plane’s luggage hold may be able to contain the force of an explosion should a device concealed within a passenger’s luggage be detonated during a flight.

A bomb-proof lining developed by an international team of scientists, including academics from the University of Sheffield, has successfully contained blasts in a series of controlled explosions in the luggage hold of a Boeing 747 and an Airbus 321.
The Fly-Bag, which lines an aircraft’s luggage hold with multiple layers of novel fabrics and composites, was tested under increasing explosive charges on disused planes at Cotswolds Airport, near Cirencester, last week.
A University of Sheffield release reports that the tests, using this technology, have demonstrated that a plane’s luggage hold may be able to contain the force of an explosion should a device concealed within a passenger’s luggage be detonated during a flight. This would mitigate damage to the plane and help keep passengers safe.
After the tests, explosives were placed in the aircraft without the lining to show the damage that could be caused.
Disasters such as the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 drove the need for this kind of invention, as well as an incident in which a printer cartridge bomb was found on-board a cargo plane at East Midlands Airport in 2010.
Fundamental to the design of the bag is a combination of fabrics which have high strength and impact and heat resistance. The fabrics include Aramid, which is used in ballistic body armor.
“Key to the concept is that the lining is flexible and this adds to its resilience when containing the explosive force and any fragments produced,” said Andy Tyas, of the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, who is leading the research at the University of Sheffield. “This helps to ensure that the Fly-Bag acts as a membrane rather than as a rigid-walled container which might shatter on impact.”
“We have extensively tested Fly-Bag prototypes at the University of Sheffield’s blast-testing laboratory, but the purpose of these tests was to investigate how the concept works in the confines of a real aircraft and the results are extremely promising.”
Hardened luggage containers (HULD) have been developed to deal with bombs hidden in passenger luggage, but these containers are heavier and more costly than conventional equivalents.
A European consortium working on the Fly Bag project includes Blastech, a spin out company from the University of Sheffield, as well as partners from Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
The technology could either be something that becomes compulsory for all airlines to use if the law was changed or could be used by airlines responding to particular threats.
It has also been adapted for use in cabin holds within the plane if the airline crew spot something they think might be a threat and could be a risk to passengers.

DHS S&T Awards $2.9 million for mobile app security research

Published 27 July 2015

DHS S& T last week announced a $2.9 million cybersecurity mobile app security (MAS) research and development (R&D) award which will help identify mobile app vulnerabilities. The MAS R&D project aims to establish continuous automated assurance of mobile apps for the federal government.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) last week announced a $2.9 million cybersecurity mobile app security (MAS) research and development (R&D) award which will help identify mobile app vulnerabilities. The Northern Virginia-based small business, Kryptowire, was awarded a 30-month contract through S&T’s Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (LRBAA).
“Ensuring that our mobile applications are secure across the federal government is a priority for S&T,” said DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology Dr. Reginald Brothers. “This project will help to enable the secure use of mobile apps across the Department’s many missions.”
The MAS R&D project aims to establish continuous automated assurance of mobile apps for the federal government. By combining mobile app archiving and app vetting technologies as well as incorporating government and industry security standards, the project will capture app changes made over the app’s lifespan and will test against known vulnerabilities and emerging threats.
The results captured will be put into a report that is continuously maintained and will follow the Federal Chief Information Officer Council’s Mobile Technology Tiger Team initiative for app reciprocity reporting that would be shareable to other federal departments and agencies.
S&T’s Cyber Security Division and First Responders Group are leading this effort with partnerships from the Department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, as well as the Department of Justice, U.S. General Services Administration and other federal agencies.
“The MAS R&D project is trying to solve mobile app security for the federal government,” said S&T Cyber Security Division Mobile Security Program Manager Vincent Sritapan. “We want the project to adhere to government requirements and best practices, but still be cost effective for the federal IT community.”
In addition, S&T will be looking to extend the mobile app security capabilities to the first responder community in order to help support their mission.
“First responders continuously rely on mobile apps for logistics and collaboration,” said First Responders Group Office for Interoperability and Compatibility Director John Merrill. “S&T wants to help make sure each first responder has access to secure mobile apps in the future.”
With the success of launching this R&D project and with partners from across the federal government, S&T looks forward to enabling the secure use of mobile apps in the federal government using the highest standards of security and protection.

Russia offers safe haven for a major botnet operator

Published 27 July 2015

Recently the FBI offered a reward of $3 million for any useful information which will lead to the apprehension of Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev. Bogachev is notorious for creating the Gameover Zeus botnet, which the FBI had successfully shut down in mid-2014, but the agency failed to capture Bogachev himself.
In early 2015 Bogachev managed to restore Zeus.
Bogachev and some members of his hacking crew now live in Russia, and the Russian government does not want to hand him or any of his hackers over to the United States to stand trial.
Gameover Zeus has been in operation for at least four years, and has developed different kinds of bank fraud. The hackers behind Zeus are believed to have stolen more than $100 million since 2011. Zeus has also been used as a means of getting money from PC owners by converting data on computers into an inaccessible code and later extorting big sums of money for the decryption key.
Botnets are a collection of compromised computers, known as zombies, which are controlled by the same hacker (botherder). A zombie is a computer affected by malware which causes it to do whatever the attacker – the botherder – wants it to do without the user’s knowledge. Computers are usually turned in zombies by visiting an infected website.
Strategy Page reports that for almost ten years the FBI, which considers the creators and operators of botnets to be criminals, has apprehended botnet operators and made them criminally liable, and also helped their victims wipe out the zombie software.
Experts estimate that on any given day, about ten million computers all over the world are zombiefied, often without owners’ knowledge. Botnets are most commonly used to steal information or dispatch malware to other computers to turn them into zombies.
Computer owners, even if they do not realize their computers have been turned into zombies, often notice that there is something wrong with their machine – programs are executed more slowly, or the computer freezes up often. There are software programs which trace and remove the hidden malware. Another way to deal with a zombie computer comuter is to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the software.
Microsoft and Internet security firms are constantly improving their security software so that it can automatically detect and delete any malicious software.
Botherders typically hide in countries that have no extradition treaty with the United States – Russia being one such country.
“The most powerful Internet weapons on the planet are botnets,” Strategy Page concludes. “And many of them are getting into uniform. In wartime, many of these botnets would be turned into weapons. A botnet can be used to shut down essential military networks, or infect military computers with destructive (to the computer) software. This isn’t science fiction. It is real.”

More evidence emerges of ISIS’s use of chemical weapons

Published 27 July 2015

A joint investigation by two independent organizations has found that ISIS has begun to use weapons filled with chemicals against Kurdish forces and civilians in both Iraq and Syria. ISIS is notorious for its skill in creating and adapting weapons and experts are concerned with the group’s access to chemical agents and its experiments with and the use of these agents as weapons.

A joint investigation by two independent organizations – Conflict Armament Research (CAR) and Sahan Research — has found that ISIS has begun to use weapons filled with chemicals against Kurdish forces and civilians in both Iraq and Syria. On three occasions last month, ISIS used projectile-delivered chemical agents in Hasakah province and against Kurdish positions near the Mosul Dam.
When CAR investigators reached the “scene of crime” near the Mosul Dam, they experienced severe headaches and nausea when encountering the pungent odor of a chlorine chemical agent, and saw a dark yellow liquid leaking from a projectile, according to James Bevan, the executive director of CAR.
CNN reports that the investigation was launched to ascertain that the device contained chlorine. The results showed that fragments of munitions contained chemical residue which still emitted a powerful odor which affected eyes and throat. The same thing happened with the residue of another rocket from Tel Brak.
Malik Ellahi, spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), noted that any use of toxic chemicals as weapons is prohibited by the Chemical Weapons convention. CAR’s James Bevan believes that the occasions of chemical weapon use the researchers identified may likely be a test run. He also added that ISIS forces are known to experiment with improvised munitions and chemicals which are at hand.
ISIS is notorious for its skill in creating and adapting weapons. Last month, photos depicting its improvised explosive device (IED) workshop in Fallujah were published. The latest assessments of experts suggest that it was a facility for creating different types of weapons.
There is a big distance between Mosul Dam and Tel Brak, but the similarity of the attacks in the two areas led analysts to think that different ISIS commands were sharing weapons and knowledge.
Moreover, there are precedents for ISIS using chlorine in a number of attacks earlier this year. Bombs filled with chlorine were used in a series of attacks near the town of Balad, in Eski Mosul, and Tikrit (see “Syrian Kurdish militia says ISIS used poison gas in attacks on militia fighters,” HSNW, 20 July 2015).
Also, during the fight against U.S. forces in 2006-07, Iraqi insurgents used crude chlorine-based weapons — usually bombs. Islamist insurgents also mixed chemicals with explosive in a suicide truck they exploded in Ramadi in 2007, killing twenty and injuring many more who required hospitalization for chemicals-related injuries.
There were many reports of the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime (see “‘Strong possibility’ Assad may use chemical weapons on a large scale to protect regime: U.S. intelligence,” HSNW, 6 July 2015; and “Assad regime continues to employ chemical weapons,” HSNW, 22 April 2015). At the same time Bevan is concerned with ISIS’s access to chemical agents, and the group’s experiments with and use of these agents in chemical weapons.

Turkey, U.S. to create “ISIS-free zone” along Syria-Turkey border

Published 27 July 2015

In what should be regarded as a significant victory for Turkey’s approach to the conflict in Syria, Turkey and the United States have agreed on a plan create an “ISIS free” strip inside Syria along the Turkey-Syria border. The deal will see Turkey drawn more deeply into Syria’s civil war and increase the intensity of the U.S. air strikes against ISIS.
American officials told the New York Times that the United States would work with Turkey and Syrian rebel fighters to clear a strip of land near the border, up to 25-mile deep, which would constitute an ISIS-free zone and a safe haven for Syrian refugees.
“Details remain to be worked out, but what we are talking about with Turkey is cooperating to support partners on the ground in northern Syria who are countering ISIL,” a senior Obama administration official said, using another term for the Islamic State. “The goal is to establish an ISIL-free zone and ensure greater security and stability along Turkey’s border with Syria.”
Late last week, for the first time since the beginning of the war in February 2011, Turkish jets bombed ISIS targets inside Syria – but they also bombed positions of the Syrian Kurds, which are trained and armed by the United States to fight ISIS.
Turkey and the United States last Friday announced that the United States would be allowed to use a major Turkish air base in southern Turkey for bombing raids against ISIS (“Game changer: Turkey allows U.S. to use of Incirlik air base for attacks on ISIS,” HSNW, 24 July 2015)
Turkey has long demanded that a safe haven inside Syria, along the 500-mile order between the two countries, be created so Syrian refugees escaping the Assad regime’s would have a safe place to say where they would be protected from Assad’s ground and air forces. In the absence of such a safe haven inside Syria, more than two million Syrians have escaped into Turkey, where they now live in tent cities.
Turkey conditioned its participation in the fight against ISIS on the creation of this safe haven.
The New York Times reports that it is not yet clear how the safe haven will be protected, who will police it, and whether it will be declared a no-fly zone patrolled by coalition planes.
Another sensitive issue is that of the Syrian Kurds: The ISIS-free zone will include parts of the Kurdish areas in Syria, but these areas are under the control of the Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD), which is the Syrian branch of the Turkish Kurds’ pro-Kurdish independence movement PKK. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by both Turkey and the United States.
The hostility between Turkey and the PKK-PYD axis is such, that when the Syrian Kurds’ People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the PYD, battled ISIS for control over the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, Turkey blocked aid and supplied from reaching the YPG fighters.
On Friday, when Turkish jets attacked ISIS positions, they also attacked several YPG positions.
The YPG is armed by the United States and trained by U.S. Special Forces, even though it is affiliated, through the PYD, with the PKK (for more on Syrian Kurds, see “Turkish jets bomb Kurdish positions,” HSNW, 15 October 2014). In recent months, the YPG and other Syrian rebel fighters have succeeded in evicting ISIS from large tracts of land in northern Syria, including the crucial border town of Tal Abyad, which foreign fighters had used as a waypoint for traveling to join the terror group.
Today (Monday), Kurdish spokespersons bitterly complained about the Turkish attacks on YPG positions on Friday, as YPG fighters laid siege to ISIS-held positions close to another key border crossing, the town of Jarablus. In a statement, the YPG said Turkey had shelled a Kurd- and Syrian opposition-held town near the border with seven tank rounds, and an hour later attacked vehicles belonging to the Kurdish militia.
“Instead of targeting IS terrorists’ occupied positions, Turkish forces attack our defenders’ position. This is not the right attitude,” the statement said. “We urge Turkish leadership to halt this aggression and to follow international guidelines. We are telling the Turkish army to stop shooting at our fighters and their positions.”
The Turkish campaign against ISIS – in addition to Friday bombing of ISIS targets in Syria, the Turkish security forces have arrested more than 200 Turkish sympathizers of ISIS — has been accompanied by an intensified campaign against the PKK. Turkish police has also arrested hundreds of PKK members in the last few days, in retaliation for violence against local police by PKK militants.
On Sunday, Turkish fighter jets targeted positions of the PKK for a second night, raising concerns that the peace negotiations between Turkey and the PKK may crumble.
Turkey’s acting prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has said military operations against the PKK and ISIS would continue as long as the country faced a threat by either group. Speaking with Turkish newspaper editors on Saturday, Davutoğlu said the military operations had “changed the regional game” and “showed its strength.”
Turkish daily Hürriyet quoted Davutoğlu as underlining that Washington and Ankara had found enough common ground over their Syria policy to reach agreement on opening up Turkey’s airbases. Davutoğlu said Turkey did not plan to send ground forces into Syria, and that Ankara was willing to cooperate with “moderate elements fighting against DAESH [ISIS].”
“If we are not going to send in land units on the ground, and we will not, then those forces acting as ground forces cooperating with us should be protected,” Hürriyet quoted him as saying.
He also said that the PYD, considered the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, could “have a place in the new Syria” if the party agreed to cooperate with opposition fighters, cut all links with Assad and if it “did not irritate Turkey.”
President Erdogan in 2012 launched the peace negotiations with the PKK in an effort to bring to an end the 30-year bloody war between the PKK and Turkey, in which more than 40,000 Turks were killed. Critics of the government say that the agreement with the United States over the safe haven and the use of the Turkish air base, and the Turkish attacks against ISIS, are meant to provide cover for the government’s plan to intensify its war against Kurdish separatists.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record; climate markers show global warming trend

Published 22 July 2015

In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth’s changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels, and greenhouse gases — setting new records. The report’s climate indicators show patterns, changes, and trends of the global climate system. Examples of the indicators include various types of greenhouse gases; temperatures throughout the atmosphere, ocean, and land; cloud cover; sea level; ocean salinity; sea ice extent; and snow cover. “The variety of indicators shows us how our climate is changing, not just in temperature but from the depths of the oceans to the outer atmosphere,” said Thomas Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information.

In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth’s changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels, and greenhouse gases — setting new records. These key findings and others can be found in the State of the Climate in 2014 report released online the other day by the American Meteorological Society (AMS).
The report, compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Center for Weather and Climate at the National Centers for Environmental Information is based on contributions from 413 scientists from fifty-eight countries around the world (highlight, full report). It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice, and in space.
“This report represents data from around the globe, from hundreds of scientists and gives us a picture of what happened in 2014. The variety of indicators shows us how our climate is changing, not just in temperature but from the depths of the oceans to the outer atmosphere,” said Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D, director, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.
NOAA says that the report’s climate indicators show patterns, changes, and trends of the global climate system. Examples of the indicators include various types of greenhouse gases; temperatures throughout the atmosphere, ocean, and land; cloud cover; sea level; ocean salinity; sea ice extent; and snow cover. The indicators often reflect many thousands of measurements from multiple independent datasets.
“This is the 25th report in this important annual series, as well as the 20th report that has been produced for publication in BAMS,” said Keith Seitter, AMS executive director. “Over the years we have seen clearly the value of careful and consistent monitoring of our climate which allows us to document real changes occurring in the Earth’s climate system.”
Key highlights from the report include:

Greenhouse gases continued to climb: Major greenhouse gas concentrations, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, continued to rise during 2014, once again reaching historic high values. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by 1.9 ppm in 2014, reaching a global average of 397.2 ppm for the year. This compares with a global average of 354.0 in 1990 when this report was first published just 25 years ago.
Record temperatures observed near the Earth’s surface: Four independent global datasets showed that 2014 was the warmest year on record. The warmth was widespread across land areas. Europe experienced its warmest year on record, with more than 20 countries exceeding their previous records. Africa had above-average temperatures across most of the continent throughout 2014, Australia saw its third warmest year on record, Mexico had its warmest year on record, and Argentina and Uruguay each had their second warmest year on record. Eastern North America was the only major region to experience below-average annual temperatures.
Tropical Pacific Ocean moves towards El Niño–Southern Oscillation conditions: The El Niño-Southern Oscillation was in a neutral state during 2014, although it was on the cool side of neutral at the beginning of the year and approached warm El Niño conditions by the end of the year. This pattern played a major role in several regional climate outcomes.
Sea surface temperatures were record high: The globally averaged sea surface temperature was the highest on record. The warmth was particularly notable in the North Pacific Ocean, where temperatures are in part likely driven by a transition of the Pacific decadal oscillation — a recurring pattern of ocean-atmosphere climate variability centered in the region.
Global upper ocean heat content was record high: Globally, upper ocean heat content reached a record high for the year, reflecting the continuing accumulation of thermal energy in the upper layer of the oceans. Oceans absorb over 90 percent of Earth’s excess heat from greenhouse gas forcing.
Global sea level was record high: Global average sea level rose to a record high in 2014. This keeps pace with the 3.2 ± 0.4 mm per year trend in sea level growth observed over the past two decades.
The Arctic continued to warm; sea ice extent remained low: The Arctic experienced its fourth warmest year since records began in the early 20th century. Arctic snow melt occurred 20-30 days earlier than the 1998-2010 average. On the North Slope of Alaska, record high temperatures at 20-meter depth were measured at four of five permafrost observatories. The Arctic minimum sea ice extent reached 1.94 million square miles on 17 September, the sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. The eight lowest minimum sea ice extents during this period have occurred in the last eight years.
The Antarctic showed highly variable temperature patterns; sea ice extent reached record high: Temperature patterns across the Antarctic showed strong seasonal and regional patterns of warmer-than-normal and cooler-than-normal conditions, resulting in near-average conditions for the year for the continent as a whole. The Antarctic maximum sea ice extent reached a record high of 7.78 million square miles on 20 September. This is 220,000 square miles more than the previous record of 7.56 million square miles that occurred in 2013. This was the third consecutive year of record maximum sea ice extent.
Tropical cyclones above average overall: There were ninety-one tropical cyclones in 2014, well above the 1981-2010 average of eighty-two storms. The twenty-two named storms in the Eastern/Central Pacific were the most to occur in the basin since 1992. Similar to 2013, the North Atlantic season was quieter than most years of the last two decades with respect to the number of storms.

NOAA notes that the State of the Climate in 2014 is the twenty-fifth edition in a peer-reviewed series published annually as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The journal makes the full report openly available online.
— Read more in State of the Climate in 2014, Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 96, no. 7 (July 2015)

Central African Republic on verge of becoming a failed state

Published 22 July 2015

The Central African Republic (CAR), one of the poorest countries in the world, suffers not only from mass atrocities and misrule, but also a dangerous dependence on aid, said the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in a report released the other day. Since early 2013 over half of CAR’s population has been the victim of sectarian violence which has cost over 6,000 deaths, leaving 2.7 million people in need of emergency assistance.
The report, Too Soon to Turn Away: Security, Governance and Humanitarian Need in the Central African Republic, documents the risks that civilians and aid workers face daily, while projecting what food and shelter needs could be through the end of 2015 according to different levels of violence and funding.
“The Central African Republic needs a new start, or it will become the case study of a failed state,” said David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. “The scale of humanitarian suffering, fueled by a complete lack of law and order, is happening far from the spotlight but endangers an already fragile and dangerous region. Underfunded humanitarian aid programs are a lifeline for more than half the population, but they need more and different help.”
The IRC says that the report is based on field research conducted in the Central African Republic in March 2015 and draws on surveys and interviews with conflict-affected Central Africans. It recommends that while immediate humanitarian aid is critical to saving lives, comprehensive international investment and diplomatic engagement should address the root causes of conflict, provide security in ungoverned space, and plan for sustainable economic development.
According to UNHCR, 465,824 people have fled the country to already fragile neighboring states to escape persecution. The situation of the country’s 458,000 internally displaced people is desperate: 39 percent live in camps which are makeshift, overcrowded, and remain dangerous. Sanitation is poor and access to clean water is limited, threatening to spread disease. Overall, the crisis has had the following devastating impact:

80 percent of health facilities that remain open depend on humanitarian aid
Harvests have decreased by 58 percent and 1.52 million people are food insecure
The IRC received over 1,500 reports of gender-based violence, of which 71 percent were rapes
454,634 tons of food have been pillaged before reaching people in need

The International Rescue Committee has been on the ground in CAR since 2006.
ICR notes that CAR cannot break the decades-long cycle of violence and humanitarian need without serious investment in strengthening governance and security. The pact adopted by over 700 local leaders and parties to the conflict at the Bangui Forum in May 2015, if properly implemented, offers a roadmap toward peaceful recovery. The Central African Republic is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on 18 October and 22 November 2015.
— Read more in Too soon to turn away: Security, Governance and Humanitarian need in the Central African Republic (International Rescue Committee, July 2015)

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Criminal Justice Program and the Institute for Public Safety are pleased to announce the Scientific Leadership Awards program at the University of the District of Columbia. The scholarships are funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Scientific Leadership Awards Program, offering undergraduate students generous support for up to four years to pursue their undergraduate degree and gain research experience in homeland security science and technology related areas.