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Volume 22 — Issue 1 | August 6, 2022

New “In Our Boots” PSAs highlight safe driving messages to protect responders on roadways

Last week, a civilian and two Pennsylvania State Police Officers, one of whom who was also a Fire Chief at a volunteer fire company in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, were struck and killed on Route I-95 in South Philadelphia. The two officers were responding to a call of a man walking along the highway at night. A DUI investigation is underway.

These tragic fatalities were the fifteenth and sixteenth responder line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) attributable to struck-by incidents on roadways so far this year. Last year, 65 emergency responders were struck and killed while assisting others on the roadway, according to the Emergency Responder Safety Institute (ERSI). An unknown number of others were injured.

Preventing future tragedies like these can only be accomplished everyone does their part to follow safe practices on roadways. Public education on safe driving practices around roadway incident scenes is an essential component of this effort.

ERSI released a series of three Public Service Announcements (PSAs) called In Our Boots. The purpose of these PSAs is to help the public understand how emergency responders experience operating on the roadway. The safety messages push the public to change their behavior when they drive: stay alert and avoid incident scenes or slow down and move over if they must pass by.

In the first two PSAs, two emergency responders who survived being struck in 1998 during a Pennsylvania Turnpike incident tell their stories. The third PSA shows the public how emergency responders operate in a high-speed traffic environment and connects viewers to the possible consequences of not giving emergency responders room to work on the roadway.

Please share the In Our Boots PSAs widely with the public in your community, through social media, local news outlets and community events.

ERSI is a partner of the United States Fire Administration (USFA) and has been a champion of responder safety on roadways since its inception. Its mission is to reduce roadway injuries and fatalities of America’s emergency responders. You can visit ERSI’s website, ResponderSafety.com, for additional PSAs and tools for public educators. USFA also provides resources for public education on responder safety during emergency vehicle and roadway operations.

(Sources: ERSI, USFA)

Highlights

New “In Our Boots” PSAs highlight safe driving messages to protect responders on roadways

CDC adds wastewater surveillance data to COVID-19 Data Tracker

FEMA releases new Hazus tools for estimating risk from natural disasters

Webinar: Lessons learned from the post-George Floyd and Capitol protests

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.

CDC adds wastewater surveillance data to COVID-19 Data Tracker

In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added a Wastewater Surveillance tab to its COVID Data Tracker.

The new dashboard, which will be updated daily, provides a color-coded view of how the levels of virus in the wastewater have changed in participating communities over the previous 15 days. More than 600 wastewater testing sites across the country are currently providing this data to CDC.

CDC encourages local public health officials to use this data to inform their public health decisions related to COVID-19. However, CDC emphasizes that SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance is not a standalone approach; it is best used in conjunction with other surveillance data.

Wastewater surveillance has great potential for use in public health. It has been used as a tool for state-level resource allocation decisions such as where to set up mobile COVID-19 testing sites or how to expand hospital capacity, and to measure how a jurisdiction is performing in curbing the spread of the disease. Data from wastewater surveillance can reveal the presence of SARS-COV-2 even in a population of asymptomatic individuals, and regardless of whether individuals in a population have sought health care for their symptoms.

CDC published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) in September 2021 discussing the wastewater surveillance efforts of pioneering programs in Ohio and Utah that were used to guide health departments’ COVID-19 responses early in the pandemic. An additional report published in CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal in September 2021 discusses the limitations of wastewater surveillance data and barriers to overcome before this data can be fully used for public health action.

In January 2022, CDC published a MMWR highlighting the use of wastewater surveillance data by California, Colorado, New York City, and Houston, Texas, during the rapid spread of the Omicron variant last year. The report discusses how this data was able to provide early warning of the presence of Omicron even before it was detected in clinical settings, and it discusses the limitations and interpretive framework for this data.

CDC launched its National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) in September 2020. Since then, CDC has been ramping up a national capability to use wastewater surveillance to provide an early warning system for public health officials on the presence and trending levels of SARS-COV-2 in community populations.

Through the NWSS program, CDC is currently supporting 37 states, four cities, and two territories to help develop wastewater surveillance systems. NWSS participation is expected to grow as CDC continues to assist health departments and public health laboratories develop wastewater surveillance coordination, epidemiology, and laboratory capacity.

To learn more about the CDC’s NWSS, how to interpret and use wastewater surveillance data, and how your jurisdiction can participate in CDC’s NWSS or its communities of practice for public health and water utilities, visit CDC’s Wastewater Surveillance website.

(Source: CDC)

FEMA releases new Hazus tools for estimating risk from natural disasters

This month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released several new and updated tools for estimating risk from natural disasters as part of its Hazus software suite. These tools can assist mitigation planners, GIS specialists, and emergency managers to determine potential losses from disasters and to identify the most effective mitigation actions for minimizing those losses.

The new and updated tools are:

• Flood Hazard Import Tool (FHIT). FHIT is a newly developed open-source tool that allows Hazus users to rapidly access and incorporate publicly available coastal flood hazard data from ADCIRC (Advanced Circulation Model), and eventually other sources, into a Hazus flood analysis.
• Hurricane Hazard Import Tool (HHIT). HHIT is an open-source tool that allows Hazus users to rapidly access and incorporate authoritative hurricane hazard data from Hurrevac into a Hazus hurricane analysis. The tool was updated so that it runs with Miniforge instead of Anaconda, ensuring that it remains freely available.
• Flood Assessment Structure Tool (FAST). FAST that rapidly analyzes building-level flood risk using the Hazus flood model methodology. FEMA designed FAST to make building-specific flood risk assessments quicker, simpler, and more resource effective. The tool was updated to include Average Annualized Loss calculation functionality.
• Hazus Export Tool. The Hazus Export Tool is used for a quick and easy extraction of Hazus results into readily usable data formats. This aids in visualizing risk assessment results to support risk communication and a deeper analysis. The tool was updated to include the Hazus Batch Export Tool.

These tools are provided through FEMA’s Hazus program. Hazus is a nationally applicable standardized methodology that contains models for estimating potential losses from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Hazus uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to estimate physical, economic, and social impacts of disasters. It graphically illustrates the limits of identified high-risk locations. Users can then visualize the spatial relationships between populations and other more permanently fixed geographic assets or resources for the specific hazard being modeled, a crucial function in the pre-disaster planning process.

Learn more about Hazus on FEMA’s website and download the free Hazus software with these new and updated tools at FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center. Please reach out to FEMA’s Hazus Team at FEMA-Hazus-Support@fema.dhs.gov if you have any comments or questions.

(Source: FEMA)

Webinar: Lessons learned from the post-George Floyd and Capitol protests

The Justice Clearinghouse is hosting a webinar on Lessons Learned from the Post-George Floyd and Capitol Protests.

The mass demonstrations of 2020 and 2021 were different than previous years in several ways. Increasing numbers of recent mass demonstrations and protests have been about and directed toward law enforcement. These demonstrations were planned and coordinated, effectively leveraged social media and messaging applications, and used more advanced logistics and tactics to counteract known law enforcement and government response strategies. These mass demonstrations have been characterized by larger numbers of participants who came from all walks of life, smaller groups who were dynamic and fluid in their movements and were more organized than the responding law enforcement agencies.

These gatherings posed challenges to well-practiced law enforcement standard operating procedures and crowd control strategies. The lessons learned from the responses to these demonstrations have shown the need for innovative approaches to preparation and response to protests that preserve democracy and public safety. This webinar will highlight some of the common themes, lessons learned, and promising practices from the public safety responses to these recent mass demonstrations.

The webinar is schedule for Aug. 23, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. EST. This webinar is free and open to anyone interested but advanced registration is required.

(Source: Justice Clearinghouse)

Cyber Incident Assistance

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

IdentityTheft.gov

IC3

Cybercrime Support Network

General Information

StopRansomware.gov

CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog

FTC scam list

CISA alerts

Law Enforcement Cyber Center

TLP Information

Mitigating attacks against uninterruptable power supply devices

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) are aware of threat actors gaining access to a variety of internet-connected uninterruptable power supply (UPS) devices, often through unchanged default usernames and passwords. Organizations can mitigate attacks against their UPS devices, which provide emergency power in a variety of applications when normal power sources are lost, by removing management interfaces from the internet.

Review CISA and DOE’s guidance on mitigating attacks against UPS devices for additional mitigations and information.

(Source: CISA)

State-sponsored Russian cyber actors targeted Energy Sector from 2011 to 2018

CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the DOE have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) detailing campaigns conducted by state-sponsored Russian cyber actors from 2011 to 2018 that targeted U.S. and international Energy Sector organizations. The CSA highlights historical tactics, techniques, and procedures as well as mitigations Energy Sector organizations can take now to protect their networks.

CISA encourages all critical infrastructure organizations to review joint CSA: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures of Indicted State-Sponsored Russian Cyber Actors Targeting the Energy Sector and apply the recommendations. For more information on Russian state-sponsored malicious cyber activity, see CISA's Russia Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories page.

(Source: CISA)

FBI releases PIN on ransomware straining local governments and public services

The FBI has released a Private Industry Notification (PIN) to inform U.S. Government Facilities Sector partners of cyber actors conducting ransomware attacks on local government agencies that have resulted in disrupted operational services, risks to public safety, and financial losses. CISA encourages local government officials and public service providers to review FBI PIN: Ransomware Attacks Straining Local U.S. Governments and Public Services and apply the recommended mitigations.

(Source: CISA)

Hundreds of HP printer models vulnerable to remote code execution

HP has published security advisories for three critical-severity vulnerabilities affecting hundreds of its LaserJet Pro, Pagewide Pro, OfficeJet, Enterprise, Large Format, and DeskJet printer models.

The first security bulletin warns about a buffer overflow flaw that could lead to remote code execution on the affected machine. Tracked as CVE-2022-3942, the security issue was reported by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative team. A second security bulletin from HP warns about two critical and one high-severity vulnerability that could be exploited for information disclosure, remote code execution, and denial of service.

(Source: Bleeping Computer)

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

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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.

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