Holiday Safety and Security

 

December 14th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

Recently I had a quick email from a company that I use and that I trust to help me keep my personal information safe and secure: LifeLock. Check them out at LifeLock.com.

Allow me to pass on some of the hints they gave regarding safety and security at the holidays (although we all “know” most of these things, we often don’t think about them, we are just too busy or we have the sometimes fatal “It will never happen to me” disease.) Still, reconsider some of these suggestions:

Shopping In-Store

1. Be aware of your surroundings and protect personal space at the ATM and registers.
2. Inspect ATMs and points of sale terminals and look for tampering before swiping cards.
3. Keep cards in sight when paying to deter dishonest cashiers.
4. Store all receipts and closely check your monthly statements to verify transactions.

Shopping Online

1. Be sure your anti-virus software is installed properly and up-to-date.
2. Shop with retailers you trust and who have positive Better Business Bureau ratings.
3. Avoid links and only visit shopping sites by directly typing in their website address.
4. Don’t purchase items while using public computers or shared wireless networks.

Thanks to LifeLock for those reminders. Did you know that it is very simple to put a ‘look alike’ card reader over the opening of an ATM that will copy all of your information as you use it? All the offender has to do is retrieve the card reader from the front of the ATM and download all the information it has stored while you used your card.

I struggle with having the desire to finish my shopping on-line even when I am on public access computers. I can be too trusting of my own anti-hacker software and forget that once the air is out in the electronic space it is free for the picking! I sometimes even trust LifeLock too much in those situations and say to myself, “Self, go ahead it will only take a second to ‘checkout’ besides LifeLock will tell you if someone intercepts my information. Well, that is true when it is happening on my computer, but what about while it floats around in space in the milliseconds it takes to do damage. Milliseconds are all it needs.

So, don’t let your kids unwisely use your card information, guard all your info lie it is vital to you, because even if it isn’t vital to you now, once it is in the hands of the bad guys, it will be!
If you can use a microchip reader blocking device to protect your credit cards like a lined wallet or card carrier, you should do so.

Just some ‘holiday safety thoughts’ to make your January bill payment easier, that is by at least making sure all those bills are truly yours!

Merry Christmas and a Safe & Secure New Year!

HEROES

 

December 7th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

Growing up in the last half of the 20th century, it was not uncommon to hear people bemoan the lack of ‘real heroes’ in our society. In the first decade of this new century, that has changed. John Wayne has been quoted as saying, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” So many of our brave young men and women have saddled up and headed out to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They headed out not knowing what might lie ahead but they had been trained by the best. They had the best equipment and they had the backing of the best our society has to offer.

Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue wrote a letter that was published in The Weekly Standard’s November 21 issue. He reported that over 1 million U.S. veterans are unemployed. “A staggering 27% of young veterans age 18 to 24 are unemployed.” As the U.S. military leaves Iraq, thousands more will separate from the service and the unemployment numbers could skyrocket. Currently there are no tax incentives for small business owners to hire a veteran. There aren’t any federal dollars available to these businesses to take a chance on hiring a vet. And yet, it is probably one of the best moves a business owner can make. Need someone disciplined? Need someone with a realistic view of the world, highly trained by the best, with more than the average applicant’s experience in working as a team member? Then, your best choice is a veteran.

Today is December 7th. Former President Franklin Roosevelt called this “…a day which shall live in infamy.” A great many vets have come and gone in the 70 years since that day. A great many heroes have given everything they had for this country. Now, it is our turn to be on the front line of a war against an enemy our parents or grandparents would be shocked to know exists. America was not ready for the terrorist type of guerilla warfare of Vietnam. Yet today, we have an enemy that straps bomb to children or sets roadside IED’s to kill indiscriminately. Whether you are former military now working in law enforcement, or current either active duty or Reservist or Guard, your role is one that we should remember. More than a particular day, we must remember the names and the faces of the vets; those who died and those who lived. Above all, American should be thankful for their sacrifice.

So, here we are. Seventy years since that fateful day when Japan struck in a multi-front assault against the United States and Great Britain. We are still fighting to keep our citizenry safe and yes, may we remember all the vets who were killed in Iran, Afghanistan or somewhere in between. We should be so very thankful for all the heroes America has seen across all those years. They were everyday people, like you. They were patriots. They probably were, as the ‘Duke’ said, “scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” May God bless all our heroes, our veterans. May you, if you are a business owner, have the ability to say “yes” to a veteran today that is looking for work. May God bless America.

BULLSEYE

December 2nd, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

Bullseye… for cartoon aficionados is Woody’s horse in Toy Story. In the real world, it refers to a target or being ‘on target’. Even in colloquial ‘isms’, bullseye refers to being directly on the point of the subject matter. Thanks to dreamstime.com for their depiction of just that, being directly on target.

Did you know that the Philippines consists of 7,107 separate islands (at low tide that number climbs to 7,108? (It is difficult to get flood insurance if you want to try to live on that last island!) The largest of the islands is Luzon wherein lies Manila. The most violent and heavily terrorist controlled island is Mindanao. It was on Mindanao that New Tribes missionaries Martin and Grace Burnham were kidnapped while at a scenic resort area and Martin was eventually killed). Rony Lewitinn of HSN recently reported on a major security breach for communications companies by a group operating in the Philippines. The security breach could have world-wide effects as information has been obtained that permited hackers to AT&T’s system to route money from a Saudi based terrorist financing group directly to terrorist groups operating locally and beyond. For the hackers to fulfill their intended goal, on an archipelago of over 7,100 islands, they had to know exactly where and how to hit their target. It did not happen without a great deal of planning. It required knowledge and skill. As one visual aid that uses a target to explain the principle, the three rings are: Could Know, Should Know, and the bullseye is Must Know. Consider all of the details that the hackers Must Know to achieve such a major score.

One of the best times to stop a terrorist pr any other criminal is in the planning stages when they must visit their target multiple times to develop intelligence on the target, design a strategy as they consider the weaknesses and strengths of the security system and determine when where and how to attack.

The target model is also used in prevention of attacks and developing a security strategy. In both scenarios whether an attack or protection, the bullseye remains the same. It is either the target to be compromised or the asset to be protected. If you are protecting it, every circle is a line of defense. If the outermost circle is strong enough, the inner circles are unnecessary but a perfect line of defense is impossible. There are always vulnerabilities and that is why there is redundancy and additional rings of security. It is within every ring that the would-be thieves, assassins, or terrorists risk detection and apprehension.

For every asset that requires protection, (and I believe this is true absolutely universally for literally every asset), the outer most ring of security, the first ring where detection is possible and the first ring that is most difficult to breach without being noticed is the public. It is the average citizen, the person who lives every day in the area where the event or some part of the event will take place.Often dismissed as ineffective, useless, and even ignorant by those who are charged with security of the asset, the public, properly informed on the Suspicious Activity Reporting System, for example, has the greatest potential to detect an attack in its earliest planning stages. They know when something is not right or something is out of place. If they can put words to what they know and they also are taught with whom to share those words, providing the “professionals” on the receiving end take time to listen, then the first ring of security will work. Learn to utilize the first ring of the target protection model, it is a valuable...

Our Own Backyard

 

November 25th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

The term-du jour is ‘homegrown terrorist’ used to describe (for those of us in the U.S. anyway) persons determine to spread terror through violence unencumbered by morals or values other than one’s own twisted sense of ‘good and evil’ who is not from the fertile crescent. When a report comes ‘across the wire’ (that terminology shows my age, i know) that someone has attempted to detonate a bomb on U.S. soil we sooth our fears of a world-wide conspiracy abated because this one was just a simple loner, not really part of a major treat against the U.S. or her allies. The same is true, at times for those of us, (I am referring to westerners in general, Americans more specifically) who live and work cross-culturally, often on foreign soil and many times as ministers of the evangelical gospel, even when we might live within a stones throw of the fertile crescent I mentioned earlier. Take for example a report just recorded on the Investigative Project on Terrorism website,

“Two extradited from Romania in Hizbollah Sting”

Here we have a U.S. Attorney from the Manhattan Office indicting two men, Cetin Aksu from Turkey and Siavosh Henareh of Iran arrested in a U.S. led sting operation to get two successfully executed arrest warrants on two men, neither from the US. and neither from Romania but both from the fertile crescent but two different countries, one: Iran a sworn enemy of the U.S. and the other: Turkey, a supposed ally of the U.s. and every thing, the U.S. Attorney, the State of New York, the City of New York and Borough of Manhattan, the nations of Iran and turkey and the peaceful city of Bucharest Romania all connected by one primary thing, TERRORISM. In this case, it is the Hizbollah brand of Terrorism.

I have friends who live in Bucharest. They are part of a country-wide ministry there. I know others that lived lived in Romania for many years. Romania is the land of ‘Romies” (Gypsies is the slang term), country gentleness, farming with hand tools, horse drawn carts, corn meal and home made wine, even at its darkest it is the black arts of the Romies or the historic ” Vlad the Impaler” known to the West as ‘Count Dracula’ from Transylvania. But Romania, particularly beautiful Bucharest, not a safe haven for terrorists!

My point is simply this… if internationally connected terrorists can be found on the streets of Bucharest Romania, they can be found on the tree lined streets of small town America too. Before we, as police officers or others in the field dealing with the threat to our homeland security, always point fingers toward the other side of the ocean, or to major metropolis in Europe, we better look behind the swing-set in our own backyard.

Incendiary Words

 

November 17th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

“The most worrisome trend to law enforcement and private industry alike has been the increase in willingness by these movements to resort to the use of incendiary and explosive devices…” 

So says an official. That is a quote directly from a federal official in an agency that should certainly know the facts. “Torched from Within ~ One Agency’s Response to Arson” is an article I wrote almost a quarter of a century ago. In those days, our biggest concern was how to battle the ‘arson for profit professional pyro.’ Certainly, there was known in military circles about small devices similar to claymores that were being used by professionals (very rarely) to score specific hits against very specific targets. But that has changed and now the world of the semi-pro and amateur jihadists are opening up to all of the possibilities some internet cookbook bomb can provide.

So… it is time. Time to Check Your IED IQ.

Color Blind

 

November 17th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

“Do you worry about someone from within your own security forces sabotaging the work here or someone [coerceing] them through their family?”
The reply was immediate and with a dismissing shrug. “No, of course not. They are (one of us).”

This comment was made recently by the head of security for a very large industrial complex that is vital to a large portion of the infrastructure for his country. Does that answer seem a little quick on the draw? Maybe he’s right. Maybe the color of the uniform, or for that matter the color of the flag on the uniform, is enough to assure us that someone is trustworthy. Then again maybe not.

Check out the ‘rest of the story’ direct from the Middle East at ColorBlind

First Responders Check Your IED IQ

October 30th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Ross Riggs

The Police Blotter - If there is anything of which you, as a street police officer, should be aware, it is the violent, indiscriminate murder that is being caused throughout law enforcement and other public safety first responders, by IED’s, Improvised Explosive Devices.

The Homeland Security Network recently ran a series of articles on IED’s which highlights the increase in IED use, some new tactics by those who deploy these vicious weapons against our cops. According to US Army Lt. General Barbero, IED attacks “outside Afghanistan and Iraq have more than doubled in the last three years.” (emphasis added) The key point is outside Afghanistan and Iraq. The simple technology of creating, deploying, and detonating these devices has been turned against law enforcement in our own cities and towns.

This is happening not just in the United States but across the world. Authorities report that

“…from January to September, there were an average of 608 attacks per month in 99 countries; including 367 IED attacks in the US alone during that same time frame.” 

Consider those numbers, 608 deadly attacks in 9 months. That is about 67 per month, more than two every single day. Now, these numbers are not strictly attacks against law enforcement. It can be drug wars between gangs but regardless when that kind of violence happens in our cities and towns, first responders are still laying their lives on the line when they respond to these kinds of calls.

According to the USA Today article quoted in “IED Use on the Rise” in HSN,

“IED’s popularity among criminals, narcotics traffickers and terrorists continues to grow, aided by the spread of online of bomb-making technology, like the 102-page English-language e-book titled ‘The Explosives Course…’ is putting first responders at risk in a way in which they never have been previously."

Very often the street police officer has heard the term that they are the thin blue line of first defense between civilization and anarchy. Now, though, they are truly the first line of defense in an all-out battle for the societies in which we desire to live.

General Barbero wrote that “…the IED is cheap, effective and readily available…” and he also warned each of us that it is and will be an “enduring threat.” Perhaps one of the most horrific ways in which this threat is being carried out against law enforcement and first responders is by luring them into a trap. According to an HSN report on based on information coming out of Mexico this use of vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) is call the “Trojan Horse of Terror.”
 

The VBIED is like the original Trojan Horse of the Battle of Troy that allowed the Greeks to final enter the City of Troy and end their ten year siege because “it arouses little suspicion, making it a not uncommon means of deploying devices.” The twist that has been put upon the use of VBIEDs is that officers are being lured to the location of a VBIED rather than trying to force the VBIED into where the police are. One example was a planned aggressive act by the offenders, known drug cartel, armed in a motor vehicle of their own that led the police into pursuing them. The offenders manipulated the pursuit until the officers were within striking distance of the VBIED and detonated it. “This tactic has been used indiscriminately against many targets including first responders.” This type of ‘Trojan Horse’ tactic is becoming more prevalent in the U.S. According to one expert, there were four such incidents in the US between mid-2010 and January 2011. According to ‘InSight Crime’ an organization that tracks organized crime and security issues, there have been at least another three incidents between January and September 2011.

What can you do as a law enforcement officer working the patrol assignment that could come in contact with just such a VBIED or an IED? Education and training are the keys. For example, on-line at the Federation of American Scientists site you can find a military manual of five chapters [PDF] dedicated to identifying and mitigating the risk of IEDs and VBIEDs. There are also a variety of YouTube videos that show the training used to avoid them and the consequences of a close encounter with an IED. The better the training you can arrange for yourself or that can be arranged for your department the better prepared you will be in the event the ‘Trojan Horse’ is set at your gate.

Security Consulting Investigations, LLC can arrange for the training within our department. Contact SCI at director@security-consulting.us. You may also contact us through www.security-consulting.us

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“The Explosives Course” was written by students of Abu Khabab Al-Masri, the al-Qaeda explosives expert killed in a drone attack by US forces in 2008.

Sylvia Longmire, a former Air Force Special Agent, former senior border security analyst for the State of California, and author of the recently published book “Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars”