Wired: DHS border screening system vulnerable to viral attacks

[BurtWorm]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,72051-0.html

By Kevin Poulsen|
02:00 AM Nov, 02, 2006

A Morocco-born computer virus that crashed the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT border screening system last year first passed though the backbone network of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement bureau, according to newly released documents on the incident.

The documents were released by court order, following a yearlong battle by Wired News to obtain the pages under the Freedom of Information Act. They provide the first official acknowledgement that DHS erred by deliberately leaving more than 1,300 sensitive US-VISIT workstations vulnerable to attack, even as it mounted an all-out effort to patch routine desktop computers against the virulent Zotob worm.

US-VISIT is a hodgepodge of older databases maintained by various government agencies, tied to a national network of workstations with biometric readers installed at airports and other U.S. points of entry. The $400 million program was launched in January 2004 in an effort to secure the border from terrorists by thoroughly screening visiting foreign nationals against scores of government watch lists.

Behind the Black
DHS officials made heavy redactions to five pages of internal documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, citing security needs. A judge didn't buy it, and ordered some of the text revealed. Here's the before and after.

While the idea of US-VISIT is universally lauded within government, the program's implementation has faced a steady barrage of criticism from congressional auditors concerned over management issues and cybersecurity problems. When Zotob began to spread last year, DHS' inspector general had just finished a six-month audit of US-VISIT's security; the resulting 42-page report, released in December, would conclude that the system suffered "security related issues (that) could compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive US-VISIT data if they are not remediated."

Zotob was destined to make those theoretical issues real....