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Volume 21 — Issue 24 | June 17, 2021

Prepare your community for a safe summer with these free outreach materials

Summer weather and many outdoor activities in the summer months present serious hazards for communities, from fire, water, extreme heat, and injuries from fireworks or outdoor cooking, among other hazards. If you have a role in prevention or public safety education, you can encourage summer safety in your community with effective outreach. The following resources from the United States Fire Administration (USFA), the National Weather Service (NWS), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and other trusted and reliable sources can help with this challenge.

The USFA provides a variety of summer outreach materials to help increase awareness and communicate fire safety messages around summertime burn safety, grilling fire safety, and outside fire safety. The USFA also addresses pool and swimming safety, and provides a handy flyer with safety tips for many summer hazards.

The Fire Prevention and Public Education Exchange is a special collection from the USFA, serving as a centralized location for national, state and local fire prevention and life safety practices and public education materials, offering fire safety practitioners immediate access to proven, effective tools that can be put to use in their own communities. Search the exchange for additional resources on summer fire safety.

Each year, extreme weather in the United States causes numerous deaths and injuries and billions of dollars in damages. The National Weather Service just launched its 2021 Summer Safety Campaign, featuring preparedness tips for summer hazards such as flash floods, excessive heat, hurricanes, tornadoes and lightning.

Fireworks safety is a constant concern, especially around the fourth of July and the Independence Day holiday. A CPSC report shows in the month around the Independence Day holiday, over 200 people on average go to the emergency room every day with fireworks-related injuries. The CPSC’s Fireworks Information Center includes fuel, lighters and fireworks injury statistics and safety outreach materials for consumer fireworks products.

Next week (June 20-26) is National Lightning Safety Awareness Week, an awareness campaign adopted by many states and supported by the National Weather Service. While lightning fatalities have dropped from about 55 per year to less than 30, this reduction in fatalities is largely due to changes in individual behavior due to greater awareness of the lightning danger. The National Lightning Safety Council provides information on lightning safety topics for each day of the week.

The USFA also recommends free outreach materials provided by the American Burn Association and the National Fire Protection Association.

(Source: USFA)

Highlights

Prepare your community for a safe summer with these free outreach materials

OSHA issues COVID-19 Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard, applicable to emergency responders providing health care services

DHS S&T successfully evaluates wildfire sensors with California emergency responders

Webinars: TRANSCAER hazardous materials training on emergency response to ethanol incidents

Cyber Threats

The U.S. Fire Administration operates the Emergency Management and Response – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC).

For information regarding the EMR-ISAC visit www.usfa.dhs.gov/emr-isac or contact the EMR-ISAC office at: (301) 447-1325 and/or fema-emr-isac@fema.dhs.gov.

OSHA issues COVID-19 Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard, applicable to emergency responders providing health care services

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced on June 10 that it is issuing an emergency temporary standard (ETS) to protect health care workers from the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 Healthcare ETS is aimed at protecting workers facing the highest COVID-19 hazards—those working in healthcare settings where suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients are treated. This applies broadly to emergency responders and health care workers in any workplace setting where health care or health care support services are provided, with specific exceptions outlined in the standard.

The ETS was released as an interim final rule on June 10, and as of June 16, 2021, has not yet been published in the Federal Register. However, from the date it becomes a final rule, states will have 30 days to show that their state plans are at least as effective as the new federal standard. Employers must comply with most provisions within 14 days but will have 30 days to comply with the provisions involving physical barriers, ventilation and training.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) strongly encourages all fire and EMS leaders to review the ETS and ensure their agency complies. Fortunately, many infection control procedures required by the ETS are already in place in most fire departments. The ETS incorporates by reference a number of consensus standards and evidence-based guidelines which were already published and in use by health care employers prior to the ETS.

A few significant changes include: a new requirement to maintain a COVID-19 log of all cases where an employee contracted the virus; a requirement to report all hospitalizations and fatalities, regardless of the window of time between exposure and hospitalization or death; and a new Mini Respiratory Protection Program.

To learn more about the new ETS requirements, visit OSHA’s website for the full regulatory text of the ETS, fact sheets, frequently asked questions, and many other tools to aid agencies in implementing the requirements of the ETS.

(Source: OSHA)

DHS S&T successfully evaluates wildfire sensors with California emergency responders

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced successful completion of the second phase of S&T’s Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) wildfire sensor technology program, part of the Smart Cities Internet of Things Innovation (SCITI) Labs initiative.

On average, 60,000 wildfires occur across America each year, burning millions of acres. Providing early warnings of these fire events is critical to response and recovery efforts, both for communities and public safety. The four prototype technologies successfully tested last week will assist with early detection of wildfires.

The field tests completed last week were conducted during a controlled, prescribed burn at the Dye Creek Preserve near Red Bluff, California, in partnership with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and The Nature Conservancy. Additional observers included partners from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the USFA.

SCITI Labs’ wildland fire sensor research focuses on real-time and continuous identification of heat sources and smoke to detect ignition location, track fire perimeter and fire characteristics, and allow for geographically targeted notifications and warnings. Watch a short video summarizing DHS S&T’s work in developing solutions with low-cost sensor technologies that provide early warnings for wildfires.

Read the full news release on this project at DHS S&T’s website. Visit DHS S&T’s SCITI Labs to learn more about its work to identify technologies that meet first responders’ operational needs and enhance commercial buildings.

(Source: DHS S&T)

Webinars: TRANSCAER hazardous materials training on emergency response to ethanol incidents

Over 16 billion gallons of ethanol is produced in the United States per year and ethanol is one of the top hazardous materials shipped by rail today. Although more than 99.99 percent of hazardous materials are loaded, shipped, transported and unloaded safely, accidents do occur, especially during transportation and transfer of these materials. When incidents do occur, they can be very hazardous for responders and communities, and destructive to the environment.

Transportation Community Awareness Emergency Response (TRANSCAER) provides a variety of training opportunities to help emergency responders prepare for ethanol and ethanol-blended fuel incidents.

TRANSCAER’s Ethanol Safety & Steel Drum 101 course combines two TRANSCAER seminars: Steel Drums 101 and an Ethanol Safety Seminar. This course is offered several times a year in classroom and webinar formats, with six upcoming webinars scheduled in July, August and September. The course will provide in-depth information on steel drum transportation and storage practices, performance standards and fusible plugs. The Ethanol Safety Seminar portion of the training will cover several ethanol safety topics and includes a final activity where participants develop plans to fight or contain fires at tank farms and bulk storage facilities.

For those interested who cannot attend a webinar or in-person event, TRANSCAER offers ethanol safety training for emergency responders in additional formats. TRANSCAER’s Ethanol Training & Emergency Response course is offered online, as a self-paced independent study course. The same independent study course can be taken for a certificate of completion and three credit hours through TRANSCAER’s Learning Management System, with a simple registration.

If you or someone in your agency is interested in delivering training to emergency responders on response to ethanol-related emergencies, TRANSCAER is also offering a two-hour train-the-trainer webinar on Ethanol Emergency Response, scheduled for Tuesday, August 24, 2021, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. CST.

Visit TRANSCAER’s website for many additional training opportunities on emergency response to a variety of hazardous materials transportation incidents.

If you have questions about TRANSCAER’s training programs, connect with your regional or state coordinator.

(Source: TRANSCAER)

Cyber Information and Incident Assistance Links

MS-ISAC
SOC@cisecurity.org
1-866-787-4722

IdentityTheft.gov

IC3

Cybercrime Support Network

General Information
Links

FTC scam list

CISA alerts

Law Enforcement Cyber Center

TLP Information

CISA releases advisory on ZOLL defibrillator dashboard

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released an Industrial Controls Systems (ICS) Medical Advisory on multiple vulnerabilities in the ZOLL Defibrillator Dashboard. A remote attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review the ICS Medical Advisory ICSMA-21-161-01 and apply the recommended mitigations.

(Source: CISA)

‘Fancy Lazarus’ cyberattackers ramp up ransom DDoS efforts

Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group “Fancy Lazarus” has been ramping up its ransom distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) efforts in several new campaigns against U.S. entities. The group is known for masquerading as various APT groups to distract security researchers. Researchers state the APT group is launching a new series of attacks using a combination of the names for Russian APT Fancy Bear and North Korea’s Lazarus group.

The gang has been delivering threatening, targeted emails to various organizations, including those in the energy, financial, insurance, manufacturing, public utilities and retail sectors, allegedly asking for a two-Bitcoin starting ransom to protect the entity against a DDoS attack. Fancy Lazarus states that if the ransom is not paid, the group will launch a destructive DDoS attack against the organizations.

(Source: OODA Loop)

Critical ThroughTek flaw opens millions of connected cameras to eavesdropping

CISA issued an advisory on June 15 regarding a critical software supply-chain flaw impacting ThroughTek's software development kit (SDK) that could be abused by an adversary to gain improper access to audio and video streams.

ThroughTek's point-to-point (P2P) SDK is widely used by IoT devices with video surveillance or audio/video transmission capability such as IP cameras, baby and pet monitoring cameras, smart home appliances, and sensors to provide remote access to the media content over the internet.

Tracked as CVE-2021-32934 (CVSS score: 9.1), the shortcoming affects ThroughTek P2P products, versions 3.1.5 and before as well as SDK versions with nossl tag, and stems from a lack of sufficient protection when transferring data between the local device and ThroughTek's servers.

(Source: The Hacker News)

The FBI will feed compromised passwords to Have I Been Pwned

Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), the website that gives you a way to check which of your login details have been compromised by data breaches, is working with the FBI to grow its database. The partnership will give the website access to fresh passwords as they become compromised.

The compromised passwords they find are often being used by crime rings, so the passwords' quick addition to the HIBP database would be extremely helpful. That said, the website doesn't have a way for the FBI to quickly feed passwords into its database yet. Thus, the website’s creator is asking people to help develop an ingestion route for the data now that HIBP has open sourced its code base.

(Source: engadget)

Cyber insurance: Insurers and policyholders face challenges in an evolving market

Malicious cyber activity poses significant risk to the federal government and the nation's businesses and critical infrastructure, and it costs the U.S. billions of dollars each year. Threat actors are becoming increasingly capable of carrying out attacks, highlighting the need for a stable cyber insurance market.

This report describes (1) key trends in the current market for cyber insurance, and (2) identified challenges faced by the cyber insurance market and options to address them.

Read the full report from the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO).

(Source: GAO)

The InfoGram is distributed weekly to provide members of the Emergency Services Sector with information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures.

Fair Use Notice:
This InfoGram may contain copyrighted material that was not specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The EMR-ISAC believes this constitutes “fair use” of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use copyrighted material contained within this document for your own purposes that go beyond “fair use,” you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Disclaimer of Endorsement:
The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement of the linked websites or the information, products or services contained therein. Reference to any specific commercial products, process or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the EMR-ISAC or the U.S. government.

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