07/02/22
Critical Infrastructure Daily Brief
Statewide Terrorism & Intelligence Center
Critical Infrastructure Daily Brief
**UNCLASSIFIED **
(U) STIC is providing this information to our partner agencies for situational awareness. This document contains information obtained from open source information. While STIC has gone to great lengths to verify the information found in open source documents on the internet, this information may not be accurate.
Situational Awareness
A temporary restraining order issued Friday by Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Raylene Grischow has reduced schools' ability to require masks and vaccinations. The order was the result of several lawsuits brought by Greenville attorney Thomas DeVore on behalf of several hundred parents and teachers from around the state. The Illinois attorney general is seeking an "expedited appeal" of the restraining order from the Fourth District Illinois Appellate Court, according to a statement from Gov. JB Pritzker. The restraining order, which went into effect Friday afternoon, voided emergency rules from the Illinois Board of Education requiring regular testing or proof of vaccination from school staff. It also voids rules from the Illinois Department of Public Health outlining a school's obligation to "exclude" students from school who have confirmed cases of COVID-19 or are a "close contact" to someone with COVID-19.
- Illinois School Mask Mandate Ruling Forces Districts to Decide Whether or Not to Make Masks Optional
- Illinois School Mask Ruling Leads to Confusion, Varied Responses Among Districts
A woman was killed and two men were wounded following a shooting inside a church in Aurora, Colorado Friday night. Aurora police responded to reports of a shooting at the church Iglesia Faro De Luz after 8 p.m. Upon arrival, officers found all three individuals suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, Aurora police said in a press release Friday night. The woman was pronounced deceased at the scene, and the two men were taken to a hospital. They are expected to survive. The woman was 36; the two men were 40 and 42. A fourth adult was also taken to a hospital for other medical reasons, police said. Detectives with the department’s Major Crimes Homicide Unit is now investigating the shooting. About 15 or 20 people were at the church Friday night attending an event, according to early information obtained by the detectives. They have identified a suspect who apparently had a personal connection with one of the shooting victims.
Three people died, including the suspect, and another person was injured in multiple shootings Saturday morning at a Brown Deer apartment complex. "It appears it started as a domestic dispute between two people" at the Park Plaza Apartments, said Brown Deer Police Chief Peter Nimmer. A 31-year-old man and 23-year-old woman were killed in the shooting. The suspect, a 26-year-old man, also died, Nimmer said. Police believe he died by suicide. The man lived at the complex, Nimmer said. A 36-year-old man, the lone survivor, was shot in the leg and may have already been released from the hospital, he said. A child who was in the apartment was unharmed and is now with family members. Nimmer anticipated naming those involved in the next 24 hours, once families have been notified. Two of the people involved knew each other, Nimmer said. When asked how the other two who were shot were involved, Nimmer said: "The best we can tell is people were trying to help out." Police are not looking for any other suspects and Nimmer said there is not a danger to the community.
Reports of hate crimes skyrocketed in 2021 in more than a dozen of America’s largest cities, with a record number of Asian Americans saying they were targeted, according to a preliminary analysis of the data. Law enforcement agencies typically define hate crimes as violent acts in which the perpetrators' actions are based on a bias against the victim’s race, color, sexuality, religion, or national origin. An analysis of 14 major metropolitan areas with fully and partly reported data found that hate crimes surged 46% from the previous year. New York City reported a 96% increase as Jewish Americans remained the most targeted group. Los Angeles experienced a 71% spike as it recorded the largest number of hate crimes in any U.S. city this century. The total number of reported hate crimes in those U.S. cities jumped to 2,019 from 1,380. Phoenix and Sacramento haven't reported their total numbers yet. Though Black Americans remained the most targeted group in most cities, anti-Asian American hate crimes increased 339% in 2021, the preliminary report found. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City broke records with the number of hate crimes against Asian Americans, while Georgia saw the largest number of fatal events with six Asian women murdered in two attacks. In New York City, the number of anti-Asian American hate crimes jumped from 30 in 2020 to 133 last year. Anti-Asian racism has increased since the beginning of the pandemic, with people blaming Asian Americans for the coronavirus pandemic.
Cybersecurity
Almost every compromised Microsoft account lacks multi-factor authentication, but few organizations enable it even though it's available, according to Microsoft. In the tech giant's new Cyber Signals report, the company says that just 22% of customers that use its cloud-based identity platform Azure Active Directory (AAD) had implemented "strong identity authentication" as of December 2021, which includes multi-factor authentication (MFA) and passwordless solutions, such as the Microsoft Authenticator app. MFA is one of the best defenses against remote phishing attacks as logging in to an Office 365 account with a compromised password requires that the attacker also has physical access to a second factor, like an account owner's smartphone. As Microsoft has highlighted previously, if you do have MFA enabled, you're almost guaranteed to be protected. Last year it revealed that 99% of compromised Microsoft accounts did not have MFA enabled.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released technical details and indicators of compromise associated with LockBit ransomware attacks in a new flash alert published this Friday. It also provided information to help organizations block this adversary's attempts to breach their networks and asked victims to urgently report such incidents to their local FBI Cyber Squad. The LockBit ransomware gang has been very active since September 2019 when it launched as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), with gang representatives promoting the operation, providing support on Russian-language hacking forums, and recruiting threat actors to breach and encrypt networks.
Operations at the oil terminals of some of northwest Europe's biggest ports have been disrupted by a large-scale cyberattack, brokers and authorities told AFP on Thursday. Antwerp in Belgium—Europe's second-largest port after Rotterdam—and the major German port Hamburg were among those targeted in the cyberattack. "There was a cyber attack at various terminals, quite some terminals are disrupted," Jelle Vreeman, a senior broker at Rotterdam-based Riverlake, told AFP. "Their software is being hijacked and they can't process barges. Basically, the operational system is down," Vreeman added. With the systems down, the oil terminals are unable to process tankers and barges unloading oil and oil products. Germany's Hamburg and at least six other oil terminals in the Netherlands and Belgium seem to be affected by the cyberattack, Euronews and AFP report. Company IT systems are being affected at the major oil trading hub Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp, which appears to be one of the main victims of the cyberattack. Germany is investigating a cyberattack that has targeted oil facilities in what could be a possible ransomware attack, prosecutors told AFP. Europol, the EU's police agency, has offered to help German authorities with the investigation. The disruption to oil terminal operations at major ports in northwest Europe comes days after a cyberattack on a German oil storage and logistics firm disrupted fuel supply chains in Germany, where supermajor Shell was forced to reroute supply to alternative depots. Shell was able to "reroute to alternative supply depots for the time being," a spokesperson for Shell's German unit, Shell Deutschland GmbH, said in a statement on Tuesday as carried by Reuters. A few days earlier, oil supply and logistics firms Oiltanking Deutschland GmbH and oil trading firm Mabanaft, both of which are subsidiaries of Hamburg-based group Marquard & Bahls, were victims of a cyberattack that affected their IT systems.
The numerous law enforcement operations leading to the arrests and takedown of ransomware operations in 2021 have forced threat actors to narrow their targeting scope and maximize the efficiency of their operations. Most of the notorious Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) gangs continue their operations even after the law enforcement authorities have arrested key members but have refined their tactics for maximum impact.
Energy
U.S. supplies of fuels such as diesel and heating oil have dwindled and refiners are having trouble replenishing that supply, which could keep prices elevated for months. Demand for distillates has been running ahead of pre-pandemic levels for months on strong manufacturing and trucking activity and more exports to Europe. However, production has not kept up as some refineries have closed since the coronavirus pandemic began while others put off maintenance. The situation has fed inflation for consumers and end users, and analysts say higher costs could persist as refiners find it harder to make enough products. As of Thursday, heating oil futures were priced at $2.83, the highest price in seven years. Fuel availability is already being tested by frigid temperatures cutting across much of the United States and expected to persist for days. That has boosted demand for natural gas power generation, and some utilities in the path of the cold are preparing to use more distillate fuel oil to meet demand.
The nation’s largest electric grid operator is so clogged with requests from energy developers seeking connections to its regional transmission network in the eastern United States that it is proposing a two-year pause on reviewing more than 1,200 energy projects, most of them solar power. New projects may have to wait even longer. The situation can be explained in part by the rapid increase in the economic competitiveness of solar power as state energy policies and corporate sustainability plans drive a booming renewable energy industry.
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