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Government ICT Strategy Six-Month Review

bgt — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:00:51 +0000

With the run up to Christmas you could be forgiven for missing the release of the NAO report Implementing the Government ICT Strategy: six-month review of progress.

The report writers, which included Mike Manisty, the first person to undertake a solar-powered voyage upstream from Westminster to the navigable source of the Thames, have some significant concerns. These include Planning, Capability and Evaluation, which need to be addressed in the short term if they are not to become significant barriers to progress.

In March 2011, the Cabinet Office published the Government ICT Strategy which acknowledged that Information and communication technology (ICT) is critical for government to operate effectively and should improve how citizens and businesses communicate with government. They accepted that government ICT projects have tended to be too big, lengthy, risky and complex, and that there have been numerous high profile failures.

The strategy has three categories for action and delivery

Reducing waste and project failure by improving procurement processes, making systems more flexible and increasing the skills of ICT professionals.
Creating a common ICT infrastructure, including communication networks, business applications, data centers, desktops and mobile devices.
Using ICT to enable and deliver change. The Government has a digital strategy to move public services online (‘digital by default’).

Outline Conclusions
The outline conclusions of the NAO report are as follows:
At the end of the first six months, new arrangements are in place to implement the Strategy. The leadership, governance and compliance mechanisms for delivery are different from those of the past and have the potential to deliver benefits. Government has adopted a pragmatic and collaborative approach and has largely met the first round of the Strategy deadlines. Thirty actions from the Strategy have been rationalized into 19 delivery areas with a more consistent plan about how the new approaches, new standards and common ICT infrastructure will be taken forward.

Against this positive backdrop the NAO have some significant concerns:

Planning – the Strategic Implementation Plan is lacking a resource plan and a map for how and when departments move to the Strategy solutions.
Capability – establishing a baseline requirement for ICT professional resources across central government has not been carried out, and key immediate skills gaps have not been filled.
Evaluation – there are no clear criteria for measuring business outcomes.

These concerns can be dealt with but need to be addressed in the short term if they are not to become significant barriers to progress.

Our particular area of interest, Agile development, gets an honorable mention under reducing waste and project failure, Area 4, (Action 9) – Agile delivery methods using user feedback to deliver systems in small pieces and keeping ICT in line with emerging business requirements. Sadly agile thinking is not something government procurement specialists are renown so there is little evidence of a change there. Perhaps we can look forward to some improvements when the next report is released.

Links to Implementing the Government ICT Strategy: six-month review of progress

Another Probation IT Fiasco

bgt — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:20:19 +0000

Another Probation IT Fiasco has left the Probation Officers using paper, according to an article on the Times website.

In an article titled Probation IT fiasco leaves service using paper, The Times states that “Probation officers are writing court reports by hand after managers were forced to ration access to computers that are unable to cope.”

This refers to a comment by Harry Fletcher of NAPO, about the state of the Probation computers in London after a major upgrade. Just in case you think that this is the first time that Harry Fletcher has criticized the rollout of Probation IT systems, or that he is a lone voice, check back on some of our earlier postings on the subject of government IT projects!

In a state of Titanic Obliviousness, (see below for attribution and definition) the juggernaut of centralized probation information technology steams serenely and blindly towards the iceberg of destiny. The only other comment necessary on this episode is that memorable quote from Albert Einstein, who said “the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over, and expecting a different outcome”.

Earlier Articles

Sources

We Can All Tackle Violence At Work

bgt — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:20:17 +0000

Just read a great post called Tackle Violence At Work, which outlines legislation relating to violence and bullying at work, and serves as a reminder that violence takes many disguises, including non-physical bullying.

According to Bully Online, the motive common to all bullies is a personal need to control others. Half of all bullies are women. Women bullies target women 84% of the time; men target women 69% of the time, making women the majority of targets in the workplace. The vast majority of bullies (81%) are managers and bosses. The common personality traits of targeted employees are individuals with a:

desire to cooperate
non-confrontational interpersonal style

To ensure that we can all identify the symptoms, and understand the need to deal effectively with bullying in the workplace the Tackle Violence At Work article includes:

five main pieces of health and safety legislation which are relevant to violence at work
five things to consider before any incident of violence occurs
five links to useful resources, including victims support organizations

Every individual reacts differently to bullying behavior, depending on their personality and life experiences. Most victims of workplace bullying will experience at least some of the following effects:

Stress, anxiety, sleep disturbance
Ill health, headaches, heart palpitations, or fatigue
Panic attacks or impaired ability to make decisions
Incapacity to work, concentration problems, loss of self-confidence and reduced performance at work
Depression or sense of isolation
Deteriorating relationships with family, friends or co-workers

Violence at work can take many forms, and the bullying can be quite subtle and covert. In some cases the perpetrator may be a manager who does not even understand that their behavior really is bullying. What passes for management style, may just be another way of glossing over bulling behavior, which is just another form of violence at work. Do you know anyone who is:

Obsessed with the past
Has low expectations of everybody
Constantly interfering, dictating and controlling

These are often symptoms of someone with a low self esteem, one of the characteristic of most bullies. Do you know anyone who behaves like this? They may not even know that they exhibit these characteristics, or be aware that these are subtle symptoms of a bullying manager. You may recognize these traits in your manager, or someone close to you. You may even know them intimately! How about:

Favors weaker employees, recruits henchmen and toadying types
Inconsistent, always critical, singles people out, shows favoritism
Withholds information, releases selectively, uses information as a weapon
Includes and excludes people selectively
Exhibits hypocrisy and duplicity

Obviously we would never apply these characteristics to ourselves! But are there any behaviors we display which other people might incorrectly attribute to us? Once again these are classic signs of a workplace bully, which may masquerade as a distinct management style.

Finally, as managers, how about some out and out management behaviors which unquestionably separate a bully from a good manager:

Recruiting only like minded individuals (back to henchmen and toadying types, and identifying with clones)
Abdicating responsibility in the guise of delegation
Being economical with the truth, using dissembling, distortion and fabrication to avoid telling the truth, such as bad news

Recognize anyone there?

Bullying at work cost UK industries a great deal, although the specific amounts vary depending on the source. On thing is clear, bullying is a form of violence, and must not be tolerated at work. If we learn to identify the signs in others and ourselves, we can all tackle violence at work, and make the workplace safer more productive environment.

Additional resources to help with bullying and violence at work:

Keylogger virus infects drone plane command centre

bgt — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:00:00 +0000

The hot news on the blogosphere at the moment is the revelation that a Keylogger virus has infected the drone plane command centre at Creech air force base in Nevada.

Keylogging (or Keystroke logging) is the action of tracking (or logging) the keys struck on the keyboard, typically in a covert manner so that the person using the keyboard is unaware. The Keylogger virus is used to capture users’ passwords, credit card details and bank account numbers as people type them in. The data is then sent over the web to fraudsters. Security officials are currently unable to completely remove the virus, as it keeps reinstalling itself, suggesting that the attack vector has not been plugged.

Creech air force base in Nevada is the command centre for the remotely piloted aircraft used in Afghanistan including the Predator drone spyplane-bomber. The Predator is a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system which is used in Afghanistan and, more controversially, across the border in Pakistan.

This is the latest security breach for the hi-tech remotely piloted vehicle system; the US military has previously found out that Iraqi insurgents were able to capture and record the footage being sent to troops and back to the airbase by cameras on the drones. The insurgents hacked into video feeds, which were not encrypted, using a $26 piece of Russian software named SkyGrabber. Apparently The encryption for the feeds were removed for performance reasons.

ACH Spam With Malware Attachment

bgt — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:05:01 +0000

The spam filters have been busy over the last couple of days, with a number of Emails with the title of ACH NOTIFICATION and ACH Payment [Number] Rejected. In each case the email contains an attachment purporting to be a self extracting PDF file.

Of course, on closer examination the supposed self extracting PDF file is a malware down-loader, no doubt ready and waiting to connect you to one or more bot nets. This is a common scenario with a spammed-out trojan down-loader triggering the execution of multiple pieces of malware on the unwitting user’s computer. In this case, Sophos anti virus detects the file and identifies it as Mal/BredoZp-B. For a detailed analysis of the activities of the spam payload, see the article on the ACH spam campaign by M86 security labs via the link below.

Automated Clearing House (ACH) is an electronic network for financial transactions in the United States. As usual with this type of spam and associated malware, ACH have no connection with the email, so there is little point in blocking the sender’s address, in our case ach.01 at nacha.org.

Once again our advice is that you should not open any unexpected emails, or unsolicited attachments, as in this case it will attempt to infect your Windows computer. Just press delete and double check that your anti-virus software is up to date.

Resources relating to ACH Spam With Malware Attachment:

Uniform Traffic Ticket Malware Spam

bgt — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:20:31 +0000

If you live anywhere except the City of New York you may have been surprised to receive an email recently, which claims to come from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Even if you aren’t based in the United States, or even don’t drive a car, you may well see the posting which poses as a “Uniform Traffic Ticket” and says that you are charged with speeding at 7:25 AM on the 5th July 2011.

People may be tempted to open the attachment out of curiosity, or even alarm if they have been driving in New York City, but do not, or you may end up with a computer infected with malware.

However, the message is certainly not from New York State Police and the attachment does not contain a speeding ticket. In fact, the attachment contains a trojan that, if opened, can install itself on the user’s computer. Typically, such trojans are able to contact a remote server and download further malware that can steal information from the infected computer and allow criminals to control it from afar.

The email sender address has been reported as automailer.nnn, no-reply.nnn and info.nnn, all purportedly at nyc.gov. It goes without saying that the New York State Police and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles have nothing to do with this email, and this should be treated as all Viruses and Spyware. The New York State Police Computer Crime Unit has issued a Hoax E-mail Alert dealing with the Uniform Traffic Ticket Malware Spam.

The attached file, which is called something like Ticket-O64-211.zip, Ticket-728-2011.zip, or just Ticket.zip, is designed to download further malicious code onto your computer and compromise your security. Sophos anti-virus products detect the malware payload as Mal/ChepVil-A, while the CyberCrime & Doing Time Blog identifies that the malware connects to a Russian domain and downloads files called “/ftp/g.php” and “pusk3.exe”.

The Uniform Traffic Ticket Malware Spam email is probably the work of a Botnet, which is a group of computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners’ knowledge. The network of private computers, sometimes known as zombies or robots, run autonomously and automatically to send out spam emails to encourage users to open virus or Trojan infected attachments. This means that it is pointless blocking the sender, as the sender address is forged, and unrelated to the actual computer used to send the email.

We recommend that you delete the e-mail it and not forward it to anyone else. Make sure that you have active anti-virus software, and have your firewall switched on. Of course you should only open e-mails from familiar and trusted sources; if you really have been speeding in New York City, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles will certainly find a way to let you know!

For further information on this subject:

Are Automotive Autopilots The Future Of Personal Travel?

bgt — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 16:08:15 +0000

Just for a change, let us venture away from the technology of personal computing and productivity, and into the automotive area. On-board computers have been getting smarter, just like hand held technology, so automotive manufacturers have had plenty of scope for adding new features like smart cruse control, automatic breaking and auto-park. Now those features have been taken a stage further so it is possible to see automotive autopilots becoming the future of personal transport.

Since it became known that Google has been using using driver-less cars for some time, a few things have happened. Firstly people have divided into two camps, those vociferously against the idea on all sort of grounds, and those for whom this technology could be start of the brave new world. Secondly, legislators have started to take notice. The US state of Nevada has set in motion Assembly Bill 511, which requires the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to write rules of the road for self-driving cars.

According to news announcements, Google’s fleet of six Toyota Priuses and an Audi TT drove more than 140,000 miles and almost all of them were on auto-pilot, though Google staff manned the cars but not the controls. The only incident occurred when a car driven by a person rear-ended one of Google’s cars. The trials were conducted with safety as paramount, and having informed local law enforcement, and each trip was preceded by a normally driven car recording the route to be traveled. Never the less this is a significant step forward in motor transport technology.

The knockers have had plenty of ground for resisting this particular advancement, including potential loss of jobs, issues of safety, challenge of unpredictable circumstance and personal resistance. One commentator puts it succinctly when he said (in the style of the American NRA) “You’ll have to pry my 5-speed manual transmission from my cold, dead hands.”! This attitude has been captured by marketing types, as one automotive manufacturer, Dodge, have even incorporated this resistance into their commercial for the new 2011 Charger, see below.

On the plus side, the expected advantages of this technology include potentially safer roads, less pollution, higher traffic density due to the elimination of human response times, and freeing up of personal time for the driver. It could even allow for platooning, which is a concept of grouping vehicles into platoons which decrease the distances between cars using electronic, and possibly mechanical coupling, as a method of increasing the capacity of roads. The idea is attractive to local government organizations responsible for roads as it does not require expensive road sensors to be be built into the carriageway, or special trackways like some earlier attempts at driver-less cars.

Whatever your point of view, this is a technology which has the potential to change the way we use the roads, and may make the future for personal transport completely different to everything which has gone before. Automotive Autopilots may be the future of personal travel.

For more on the subject of Google and their auto-piloted cars, see the following links:

If you want to see the 2011 Dodge Charger Commercial check out Dodge Rebels Against Robots in New 2011 Charger Commercial

Microsoft Offers Reward for Information on Rustock Botnet

bgt — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:20:03 +0000

In a further move against international cyber criminals, Microsoft has offered a reward of $250,000.00 reward for information that results in the identification, arrest and criminal conviction of those responsible for controlling the notorious Rustock bot-net.

Microsoft says that IP address infections of Rustock have reduced by more than 50% worldwide since the company took action in March. Microsoft took the infamous Rustock botnet down earlier this year alongside U.S. enforcement agents, and claims that it remains dead.

The Rustock botnet was the largest source of spam in the world, consisting of around 150,000 machines sending around 30 billion spam messages a day. The take down was part of Microsoft’s fight against illegal botnets, designed to stop the spread of malware and spam mail.

Anyone with information on the Rustock botnet or its operators should contact Microsoft at avreward@microsoft.com.

To find out more about Microsoft Offering a Reward for Information on Rustock Botnet, click here to see the post on the Official Microsoft Blog.

If you have missed previous TechCo Support posting about the fight against the menace of Botnets and the progress of the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit please see:

Microsoft Reward Document

Add a Mac Mini Server to your network

bgt — Sun, 15 May 2011 12:55:49 +0000

Have you ever considered adding a Mac server to your gadget collection, but were afraid of the hassle? Does your Mac work group need a server to share essential resources like your media library, without cluttering up your individual machines? Have you ever wondered if you could set up a Mac server to control your Mac work stations?

Well the answer may be to get yourself a Mac Mini, preloaded with Snow Leopard Server. You can buy one of these little dynamite machines for less than £900 including VAT in UK, or $950 US, and be up and running in less than an hour. The standard Apple Mac Mini Server comes with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 GB RAM, and two 500 GB Hard drives as standard, with a Geforce 320M graphics adapter, and of course Snow Leopard Server 2 installed.

Be warned, however, that this machine does not include an optical drive, as does it’s client cousin, or a keyboard or mouse, and you will need your own display. It does have two graphics ports, a HDMI port, with an included HDMI to DVI conversion lead. It also includes Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on 802.11n specification; 802.11a/b/g compatible), Gigabit Ethernet wired networking (10/100/1000BASE-T), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) for connecting with peripherals such as keyboards, mice and cell phones, and four USB 2.0 ports and a FireWire 800 port. Not bad in such a tiny form factor!

If you want to use a VGA display you can buy an optional adapter Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter, which allows you run up to 2560-by-1600 resolution. Please note that the Mac Mini Server has a Mini DisplayPort, not a Mini DVI port, so you need an Apple MB572Z/A Mini Display Port to VGA Adapter cable, or equivalent. See the link below for a suitable product, or contact Apple.

The setup is quite simple, with a Mac quality Assistant to guide you through the process. One note of caution is offered here; if the server you are setting up will serve as an Open Directory Master and DNS server, you should not set up a new Open Directory domain until you have read and understand the implications. One of the pitfalls of simply walking through Mac OS X Server’s automatic Server Assistant tool, is that the Assistant offers you the option of setting up a new Open Directory domain. This can cause problems if the server you are setting up will serve as an Open Directory Master and DNS server. See Understanding Mac OS X Open Directory later for more information.

Another thing to be aware of of if you are a hands on person and just want to get going. Make sure you have the server software serial number cards that are essential during the setup process! That is one of the first things the Server Assistant requires, and if you have thrown away the packaging in your enthusiasm to get going, you will have a problem. Not that anyone we know would have done that, you understand!

In use, the Mac Mini Server runs cooler that the client version with its built in internal optical drive. Is seems that the internal optical drive generate most of the heat in a Mini, while the disk drives generate very little, which contributes to the heat savings claimed by Apple. As a benchmark, a Mini with Snow Leopard Server should handle a work-group or small business of 25 users with a bit of room to spare.

For the corporately minded, who like the server bolted into a 19″ rack, there is even a nifty little attachment you can buy, which allows two Mac Mini Servers to be secure in a 1U rack mounted enclosure. Neat!

Microsoft Floors The Coreflood Botnet

bgt — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:20:05 +0000

With headlines like “More Than 2 Million Computers Infected with Keylogging Software as Part of Massive Fraud Scheme”, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the filing of a civil complaint, the execution of criminal seizure warrants, and the issuance of a temporary restraining order as part of the most complete and comprehensive enforcement action ever taken by U.S authorities to disable an international botnet.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut has filed a civil complaint against 13 “John Doe” defendants, alleging that the defendants engaged in wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal interception of electronic communications.

The Coreflood botnet is a particularly harmful type of malicious software that records keystrokes and private communications on a computer. Once a computer is infected with Coreflood, it can be controlled remotely from another computer, known as a command and control (C & C) server.

Interestingly, the US Government also obtained a temporary restraining order (TRO), granting authorization to respond to signals sent from infected computers in the United States in order to stop the Coreflood software from running, thereby preventing further harm to hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting users of infected computers.

Essentially the DoJ was allowed to impersonate the commanding servers and send a Stop command to the botnet agents that were tethered to the 5 illegal computers, known as a command and control (C&C or CnC) servers. This is believed to be a precedent, and opens the door for more active countermeasures against these criminal money-making machine networks.

Following on from the earlier successes against the Rustock botnet in March, and the Waledac botnet in February, this action takes the war against these cyber crimanls a stage further.