Reposted from The Hill

Seventeen years after the 9/11 terror attacks, lawmakers are stepping up their warnings about how the next assault on the U.S. could be a cyberattack.

Airports and airlines increasingly rely on cyber networks to operate, yet there are no federal regulations specifically governing their use.

Lawmakers say they are drafting legislation that would impose new standards for cybersecurity as experts argue U.S. airlines are vulnerable to attacks.

“Cybersecurity risks, without question, represent the most preeminent and existent threat to the continuous safe, secure and efficient operations on U.S. airports and the global aviation system,” Michael Stephens, the head of IT and general counsel for Tampa International Airport, said at a congressional hearing last week.

While the industry has its own cybersecurity standards, lawmakers argue they aren’t enough and that the roles of federal agencies have to be more clearly spelled out when it comes to addressing cyber threats to aviation.

“We must urge security agencies to think creatively about potential new attack actors as terrorists continue to search for new vulnerabilities to target,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) said. “With that in mind, we must do more when it comes to the cybersecurity of transportation systems. We cannot allow them access to cockpits via cyber means.”

The New Jersey Democrat is working on a bill that would require the Transportation Security Administration to adopt rules that would require both airlines and airports to adopt baseline cybersecurity standards.

A spokeswoman for Watson Coleman told The Hill that the bill is in its earliest stages of development.

In the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 19 terrorists hijacked planes and crashed two of them into the twin towers in New York City and another into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa. 

The deadly attacks sparked a series of reforms to aviation safety, largely focused on physical safeguards meant to prevent people from weaponizing airplanes as was done on 9/11.

At a hearing last week, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) expressed the fear that in the future, terrorists could use cyber means to turn U.S. aircraft into weapons without even being on board.

“The specter remains, a plane could technically be weaponized against us and be taken over by bad guys through cybersecurity threats,” he said.

Experts say that while the scenario is a real possibility, they are more focused on systemic cyber attacks that could cripple flight systems and dramatically disrupt business and life in the United States.

Joel Otto, the vice president of strategy and business development for Rockwell Collins Information Management Systems’s business unit who has spent three decades working in aviation, said those working in aviation are more concerned about making sure a plane takes off, flies and lands safely than about any specific example of an attack, like that mentioned by Katko.

“While you worry about the potential outcomes, what you more worry about is that any bad outcome is a bad outcome,” he said, adding that cybersecurity is now considered as important as safety within the aviation industry.

Because the industry’s standards have not been adopted into federal law, there could be discrepancies in how those standards are applied, experts say.

A survey cited by the federally-operated Airport Cooperative Research Program in its guide last year on best cybersecurity practices found that 32 out of the 41 responding airports had cybersecurity programs in place. However, only 49 percent of respondents felt that the measures offered adequate protection from cyberattacks.

And reports last year that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was able to breach a plane on a tarmac also amplified concerns about airlines’ cybersecurity. Internal DHS documents, obtained by Motherboard earlier this year, also indicate that some agency officials believe it’s only a “matter of time before a cyber security breach on an airline occurs.”

The impact of those potential cyberattacks has been partially realized at at least one U.S. airport this year.

The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport shut down its WiFi networks in March as a precaution after Atlanta was targeted by a massive, days-long ransomware attack.

Christopher Porter, the chief threat intelligence specialist for the cybersecurity firm FireEye who testified at last week’s hearing, said during an interview this week that a federal baseline on cybersecurity could more clearly lay out the roles of airlines, airports and federal officials in the case of an attack.

Organizations like the Aviation Information Sharing and Analysis Center (A-ISAC) offer a way for the federal government, airlines, airports and aircraft manufacturers to share information about potential cyber threats. But experts said more needs to be done to loop in all parties when it comes to cyber.

“There may be parts of the aviation sector that have underinvested in cybersecurity because they can't justify it as a business expense, but everyone will be required to do it,” Porter said of a potential federal framework. “I think that would make it a lot easier for them to bring things up to par.” 

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Reposted from the Express UK

Terrorists and criminals are being hunted at museums using FBI-style “behavioural observation” techniques. The attractions are now seen as key targets for terrorists, with one 18-year-old female plotter being found guilty earlier this year of planning a grenade attack at the British Museum.

Guards at the Victoria and Albert Museum are among those trained to identify suspects using criteria such as facial expression, movement and voice. 

The method is a form of criminal profiling used by agencies such as the FBI and has also helped reduce minor crime such as pickpocketing and theft from backpacks. 

A source said: “The system uses key criteria to identify persons of interest. Staff are trained to seek out anyone suspicious, approach and confront them. 

“Potential criminals have certainly been identified and there has been a significant fall in petty crime since the system was brought in.” 

A V&A spokesman confirmed that it has developed techniques aimed at keeping the public safe.

He said: “The V&A takes security very seriously. We have developed a range of tactical options that we use to protect our visitors, staff, collections and buildings. 

“We do not discuss our security assessment or tactical options openly but work closely with the police and other partners to ensure we provide an appropriate response to any perceived risk.”

Behavioural observation uses scientifically researched primary indicators to identify potential trouble makers. 

These include what a person is looking at, their clothes, how they walk and how they act in a certain location. 

The methods are usually applied in security hotspots such as airports, ports and at celebrity events and this is the first time they have been used in museums. 

The training began last year and security staff have been told it is part of a wider approach to countering the threat of terrorism. 

The system is also believed to be used in other London attractions, including the Natural History Museum. 

A spokesman said they prefer not to comment on security but he added: “We continually review our security measures based on advice given by the Metropolitan Police. We have enhanced security procedures to protect our visitors, staff and the collection.” 

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Reposted from NY Times

Foreign terrorist groups and their affiliates had a bad year in 2017 as the United States and other countries fought back against the Islamic State, but Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias remain deadly threats, according to an annual government terrorism report that was released on Wednesday.

There were 8,584 terrorist attacks around the world in 2017, a 23 percent decline from 2016, according to the State Department report. As a result, more than 18,700 people were killed, about a quarter of whom were the perpetrators themselves.

That death toll represented a 27 percent drop from the previous year, the report said.

Much of the reason for the decline was the improved security situation in Iraq, according to Ambassador Nathan Sales, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism.

Still, more than half of all terrorist attacks worldwide took place in just five countries: Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Pakistan and the Philippines. And 70 percent of all deaths from terrorist attacks occurred in a different, if overlapping, set of five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria.

The security situation in Afghanistan continued to worsen as a result of coordinated attacks by the Taliban, including the group’s affiliated Haqqani network, the report noted. Some of the attacks were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan, a source of continuing irritation in relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Although four countries are designated as state sponsors of terrorism, the report highlighted Iran as a top threat.

The Trump administration has made its tough approach to Iran a central tenet of its foreign policy. President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal this year, and his top administration officials have excoriated the clerical government in Tehran at almost every opportunity.

The report said Iran is undermining legitimate governments and American interests in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The seven-year civil war in Syria has given Hezbollah, an Iran proxy, valuable battlefield experience, the report said.

The other three state sponsors of terrorism are North Korea, Syria and Sudan.

Broadly, the terrorism landscape grew more complex in 2017, according to the report.

While the Islamic State lost much of the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria, it shifted to a more dispersed model — encouraging attacks by sympathizers around the world using whatever weapons were at their disposal. Such efforts led to high-profile attacks in Manchester, England; Barcelona, Spain; and New York.

In a news briefing, Mr. Sales emphasized that while the Islamic State garnered much of the world’s attention in 2017, Al Qaeda quietly expanded its membership and operations. He called Al Qaeda a “determined and patient adversary.”

“Although ISIS has gotten the headlines,” he said, referring to the Islamic State, “we remain focused and determined to confront Al Qaeda wherever we find it.”

Smaller terrorist groups were also mentioned in the report, which has a lengthy listing of organizations from around the world, including Boko Haram in several African countries and Real I.R.A. in Northern Ireland. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba were cited as threats to South Asia generally.

Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, was highlighted for what the report said were its efforts to rebuild its military capabilities to support terrorist attacks against Israel. The Trump administration has rescinded nearly all the aid the United States traditionally provided to Palestinians, cuts that threaten many of the schools, clinics and hospitals that Palestinians depend upon.

Whether such cuts will encourage or discourage extremism among Palestinians has yet to be seen.

Under the Trump administration, the Pentagon has pivoted from a yearslong focus on fighting foreign extremist groups. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has called Russia and China a “primary focus of U.S. national security,” and there are plans to slash the number of military counterterrorism forces in Africa.

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Reposted from AP News

As people return to work after summer vacations, it’s a good time to make sure everyone in the organization is sensitive to the need for computer security. Here are some basics that bosses should emphasize to their staffers:

PASSWORDS

Start with creating a strong password. It’s probably a good idea for the company to have minimum requirements for passwords used to access its systems. Those requirements should include a mix of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Many businesses are using two-factor authentication, which requires people to enter a code in addition to the login/password combination. They may also require staffers to periodically change their passwords.

The IRS has guidelines for creating passwords on its website, www.irs.gov ; search for “Tax Tip 2018-129.” While the information is intended for tax professionals, it is useful for anyone.

PHISHING ALERTS

Bosses should remind everyone to be vigilant about phishing scams, which can plant malicious software on a computer or phone. Everyone should understand that they shouldn’t click on any link or attachment in an email unless they’re sure it’s legitimate. It should be standard operating procedure to check a sender’s email address to be sure it’s correct and not suspicious, and the body of an email should be checked for any oddities that can be hallmarks of phishing scams.

As new staffers are trained, they should learn about the kinds of emails they can expect to receive. The more familiar they are with a company’s customers, vendors and other contacts, the better they’ll be at spotting suspicious emails.

LOCKING PHONES AND LAPTOPS

Staffers who can access the company’s systems including its email via smartphones and laptops — whether they’re personal or company-provided — should be required to lock their devices with codes or passwords.

DOWNLOADING UPDATES

If the company has an information technology staffer or department, it should be aware of security and other updates issued by Microsoft and other companies. Each company device should be updated. If there isn’t a dedicated IT staffer, the owner or another manager needs to be sure that all updates are downloaded.

THE OWNER’S RESPONSIBILITY

A survey issued earlier this year by insurer Hiscox found that only half of small businesses said they had a clear cybersecurity strategy. Making systems as secure as possible often gets put on the back burner while an owner works with customers and staffers.

Companies without IT staffers should consider bringing in a consultant who can assess what’s needed to increase security. Among the items companies need are anti-virus and anti-malware software, firewalls, encryption software and offsite storage that continually creates new versions of all of a company’s data. Those versions will be critical if a company’s computers are victims of ransomware attacks that render files and documents unusable.

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Reposted from ArtNet

The ancient city of Palmyra, which has been badly damaged by ISIS, could reopen to tourists as early as next summer, the Syrian government has announced. The historic site, located in Syria’s Homs Governate province, was once among the country’s top attractions, with as many as 150,000 visitors a year.

“The authorities now have a project to repair all the damage caused to Palmyra’s Old City,” Talal Barazi, the provincial governor of Homs, told Sputnik News. “This is the world history and it belongs not only to Syria,” he added noting that UNESCO, Russia, Poland, and Italy are among the countries and institutions which have pledged to offer assistance in Syria’s efforts “to restore the artifacts and historical value of Palmyra.”

Once called the “Pearl of the desert,” Palmyra, famous for its well-preserved Greco-Roman ruins, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, renowned for its unique blend of Greek, Roman, Persian, and Islamic cultures. In 2013, following the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian Civil War and the rise of ISIS, it was added to the list of endangered world heritage sites.

Since that time, ISIS has twice occupied Palmyra, first beginning in May 2015. The government expelled the terrorist group from the ancient city in March 2016, only to lose it again in December of that year. After two years of protracted battles, the Syrian Army retook the site for good in March of 2017—but not before the terrorist group had destroyed some of the city’s most historic treasures.

While it controlled the historic site, ISIS publicly beheaded Palmyra’s 82-year-old head of antiquities, Khalid al-As’ad, when he refused to reveal where he had hidden important statue. The group destroyed such ancient wonders as the Temple of Bel, the Temple of Baal Shamin, the Arch of Triumph, and columns in the Valley of the Tombs. (The terrorist group has wrought similar cultural destruction throughout Syria and Iraq, a cultural cleansing effort to eliminate evidence of non-Islamic history.)

Since the city was retaken, UNESCO has been leading the charge for its restoration and recovery, with a $150,000 “Emergency Safeguarding” project for the Portico of the Temple of Bel. The organization has deplored “the destruction of Syria’s exceptional archaeological, urban, and architectural heritage,” which includes five other World Heritage Sites.

The nearby city of Homs is also being restored at an estimated cost of $2 billion, reports the Art Newspaper. The reconstruction of its 2,000-year-old central market, which began three years ago, should be complete by spring 2019.

In October, the National Museum of Damascus successfully completed restoration work on the 2,000-year old limestone Lion of Al-lāt statue, a 15-ton piece sculpture that had been broken into pieces by ISIS. Two funerary statues secreted out of the city by Al-As’ad were restored last year by Italian experts, who reconstructed broken fragments using 3-D printing and nylon powder.

“When I saw the destruction for the first time, I was hit with such distress,” Daria Montemaggiori, part of the restoration team at Rome’s Central Restoration Institute, told CNN. “The work of restoration allows us to erase the act of violence.”

Additional restoration work on statues and sculptures recovered from Palmyra is taking place in Damascus, with the assistance of specialists from the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. The terrorist group smashed large-scale artworks from the Museum of Palmyra that workers were unable to remove for safekeeping ahead of the occupation.

“The work is very complicated; the terrorists have broken the sculptures into many pieces,” Maher al-Jubari, the director of the laboratory of national museums in Syria, told the Telegraph. “We collected everything in one box and marked the parts. Now my task is to glue them together with a special solution.”

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Reposted from The Boston Globe

Why, 28 years later, is the mystery of the Gardner art heist still so irresistible? With a $10 million reward on offer, how hasn’t a single piece of the half-billion-dollar haul surfaced? Gone in 81 minutes, how have the Gardner thieves escaped capture for so long?

With first-ever interviews, unprecedented access and over a year of investigative reporting, “Last Seen” takes us inside the ongoing effort to bring back the jewels of the Gardner collection.

Persons featured in the first episodes:

Anthony Amore has worked as security director for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum since 2005. In his role at the museum, he also is responsible for assisting the FBI in solving the heist. By his own account, Amore still speaks at least daily with Geoffrey Kelly, the top FBI agent on the case, and works with him to pursue leads, conduct interviews, communicate with reporters, art investigators and even members of the public about the case. He has even accompanied federal agents on the numerous searches of homes and other properties.

Over the years, he has become a consultant specializing in art theft and museum security. He has written two books: “Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Story of Notorious Art Heists” (with reporter Tom Mashberg) in 2011 and “The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds and Forgeries in the Art World” in 2015. In 2018, he ran on the Republican ticket for the office of Secretary of State in Massachusetts.

Amore says he will not rest until the paintings are found. While maintaining confidentiality of the criminal investigation, Amore has said publicly he believes the heist was the work of a local criminal gang, with assistance from someone inside the museum. He believes the artwork has been stashed somewhere nearby. 

Anne Hawley was the director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum when it was robbed in 1990. She had only been on the job for a matter of months when the theft occurred. The fourth director since Gardner died in 1924, Hawley’s mission was to restore vitality to the museum, which had begun to fray because of inadequate fundraising. Haunted by the loss of the masterworks and concerned that the FBI wasn’t giving the case adequate attention, Hawley took an active role in the probe. She hired a private investigative firm, encouraged Boston’s business and political leaders to get involved and even pursued leads herself. Before retiring in 2015, Hawley led a $118 million fundraising campaign that built an extension to the museum designed by famed architect Renzo Piano.

Born in 1840, Isabella Stewart Gardner became a force of nature in Boston society and a leading American art collector. A Boston newspaper in 1875 called her “one of the seven wonders of Boston.” The newspaper noted: “There is nobody like her in any city in this country. Everything she does is novel and original. She is as brilliant as her own diamonds and is as attractive. Boston is divided into two parts of which one follows science and the other, Mrs. Jack Gardner.” As a young woman, she spent her time cultivating fascinating people -- mostly young, beautiful, creative men -- and was a philanthropic force in the city. She inherited her father’s fortune and collected art. Toward the end of her life, Gardner wrote to a friend: “Years ago, I decided that the greatest need in our country was art.” And that is what she left behind in the Renaissance-style Venetian palazzo known as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Richard (Rick) Abath, 23, worked as a night watchman and made the grievous error of allowing the thieves into the museum. Authorities have long suspected that Abath, who now lives and works as a teacher’s aide in Vermont, may have been complicit. He’s cooperated fully with investigators throughout the process and claims he has passed FBI lie detector tests. However, suspicions around Abath’s possible involvement in the robbery arose again when investigators discovered the museum’s motion detector equipment had not picked up the presence of the two thieves in the museum’s Blue Room, where a Manet portrait was snatched. The last movement detected that night had been Abath’s footsteps on his initial patrol rounds. 

Randy was the second security guard working on the night of the heist. This podcast is the first time he has spoken publicly about what happened that night, and has asked us to not use his last name. In 1990, he was working to land gigs as a musician, but worked at the museum to make ends meet. He had recently earned a masters in performance from the New England Conservatory of Music and had a passion for symphonic music. On the night of the heist, he wasn’t scheduled to work, but was called in because another guard called out sick. Today, he makes his money playing music, mostly on cruise ships.

Follow this link to listen to the podcast and to see the original post.

Founding Director, Stevan P. Layne, CPP, CIPM, CIPI, was honored as one of Security Magazine’s Most Influential People in Security this month.

“In 1999, I recognized the need for a positive training source for security officers, supervisors and managers,” Layne says. “Together with my son and other leaders in the industry, we formed the International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection. We continue to train candidates for certification at leading institutions throughout the U.S. and abroad, and are recognized as setting the standard for best practices in protecting cultural properties and public institutions.”

Layne is the author of “Safeguarding Cultural Properties,” “The Cultural Property Protection Manual” and co-author of “Suggested Guidelines in Museum Security.” He has authored national certification programs for security officers, supervisors, managers and instructors, and he presents seminars, workshops and keynotes for state, regional and national associations.

He has served as protection adviser to more than 500 institutions, crime prevention coordinator for several law enforcement agencies, and special instructor for the Colorado Law Enforcement Training Academy, among others.

Layne is a graduate of Missouri Military Academy, the U.S. Army Infantry Officer Candidate School, Career Officer Military Police Program, and the FBI Police Management Program.

For future security and law enforcement professionals, Layne says: “There is considerable competition for leading roles in both security and law enforcement management. It is strongly recommended for those wishing to advance in this field to gain a positive combination of field experience and academic achievement. Many excellent opportunities are lost in the interview process. Learn about the positive traits interviewers look for, and be prepared to make a positive impression. This includes what you wear, your personal hygiene and your ability to directly answer questions.” 

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Reposted from The Washington Post

Around midday on April 15, 1958, New York’s Museum of Modern Art erupted in flames. The three-alarm fire spread rapidly, threatening the world’s preeminent collection of 20th-century paintings and leaving nearly 200 people stranded on the building’s roof.

In the end, firefighters controlled the blaze and — thanks to heroic efforts by museum staff — the collection was largely unscathed. Staffers carried a group of major Georges Seurat paintings, including his masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” on a rare loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, to safety in an adjacent building. Nonetheless, one of Claude Monet’s largest “Water Lilies” paintings was destroyed and several other works severely damaged.

In the days since a horrific fire engulfed the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the world has reacted with outrage and horror at the gutting of the largest treasure house of natural history in Latin America. Brazilians have been quick to blame the devastation on government mismanagement, drastic budget cuts and a general neglect of the country’s cultural heritage.

Yet as the 1958 MoMA conflagration reminds us, fires and other natural hazards have long posed as much a threat to leading museums in the United States and Europe as they have to their less wealthy counterparts in other parts of the world. In the United States, the long history of fires goes back to the early years of museum-building — and continues to the present day.

In 1865, the American Museum — a popular New York City collection of historic artifacts, taxidermied animals and live animals owned by showman P.T. Barnum — caught fire and burned down so quickly that two whales were boiled alive in their tanks. In June, a fire destroyed the Aberdeen Museum of History in Aberdeen, Wash., which contained thousands of local artifacts.

Already in the early 20th century, there was widespread demand for “fireproof” museum buildings, but sprinkler systems can pose risks of their own. In the MoMA fire, some of the damage was caused by water from the building’s own firefighting standpipes. (Paradoxically, the MoMA fire was caused by workers trying to install a better air-conditioning system, another step aimed at protecting the art.)

Today there is also the growing menace of climate change. In recent years, art capitals ranging from Miami to Los Angeles have faced hurricanes, floods and wildfires, with art museums often perilously close to the front lines.

Consider the Netherlands. The country has long been known for state-of-the-art sea barriers and flood-fighting expertise. But in Rotterdam, where 90 percent of the city is below sea level, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which houses a world-renowned collection of Old Masters and modern European art, has faced five floods in the past 14 years that have threatened the collection.

During a flood in 2013, torrential rain short-circuited the water pumps in the Boijmans’s art storage area and water began streaming in. Sjarel Ex, the museum’s director, faced a terrible decision: Emergency workers could divert the water away from the rooms with the paintings. But this would likely sacrifice the museum’s collection of historic books.

At the last minute, museum staff were able to use enormous extension cords to reconnect the pumps and save the collection. But the near-calamity was galvanizing. Now, the museum is building a $70 million-plus , aboveground art “depot” by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV to store 145,000 museum works in a totally floodproof environment. (Shaped like a giant reflective sugar bowl, it will be open to the public.)

For the most deep-pocketed museums, special measures can help stave off the worst threats. The Getty Center in Los Angeles sits on a hilltop in an area of frequent earthquakes and wildfires. But with an endowment of nearly $7 billion, it has been able to invest extensively in protective technologies. Its billion-dollar campus features thick walls of fire-resistant travertine stone, a million-gallon water tank and a system of irrigation pipes that can soak the perimeter if needed. It has also developed display cases that isolate artworks from seismic activity.

Today the Getty is considered one of the safer places for art in Los Angeles. When a devastating fire seared the surrounding hillsides last winter, firefighters used the Getty as a base for monitoring the area.

Other museums are starting to take note. Completed in 2015, the new, $422 million Whitney Museum of American Art, which is close to the Hudson River, has been called one of the most flood-proof buildings in New York.

Most museum buildings, however, predate recent innovations, and, in the face of growing operating expenses and shrinking budgets, few are prepared to allocate scarce resources for disaster preparation. As J. Andrew Wilson, a museum adviser and former head of the Smithsonian’s fire protection program, has observed, “There exists a cavalier attitude in this country that ‘fire won’t happen to me.’ ”

As we witness the Brazil tragedy, it may be all too easy to conclude that this is a poor-country problem. It’s not. It is a warning for all of us.

Until we begin to address the critical man-made and environmental threats to our own national treasures, we, too, are in danger of watching hundreds of years of art and history go up in smoke.

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Reposted from Smithsonian.com

It’s been just under a week since an inferno blazed through Brazil’s 200-year-old National Museum, razing the historic institution and reducing the majority of its collection to ashes. Researchers are still awaiting permission to enter the building’s smoldering remains to assess the extent of the damage, but the Associated Press’ Marcelo Silva de Sousa and Mauricio Savarese report that firefighters have begun the arduous task of sifting through the rubble and identifying fragments of salvageable artifacts. While the cause of the fire and exact fate of the museum’s more than 20 million artifacts—including Luiza, the oldest human fossil in the Americas, and the reconstructed skeleton of a Maxakalisaurus topai dinosaur—remain unclear, here’s what we’ve learned in the wake of the unprecedented loss.

Shortly after the blaze broke out around 7:30 p.m. on September 2, a group of museum staff, technicians and students entered the burning building and rescued a small selection of items. Zoologist Paulo Buckup told BBC Brasil’s Julia Carneiro that he managed to escape with “a few thousand” mollusk specimens, including 80 percent of the museum’s holotypes, or original examples of given species. As Buckup explained to Globo News, the team “decided to select the material of greatest scientific and irreplaceable value.”

The museum’s prized Bendegó meteorite, a 5.8-ton space rock discovered in the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1784, survived the flames largely unscathed, Hanneke Weitering reports for Space.com. Video footage posted on Twitter by local station Rádio BandNews FM shows that a second, smaller meteorite also survived the fire.

The Atlantic’s Ed Yong reports that the museum’s herbarium, main library and portions of its vertebrate collection were kept in a separate building and therefore not affected by the fire. A series of centuries-old Torah scrolls believed to be some of the world’s oldest Judaic documents were similarly moved to a separate location prior to the fire per Pregaman and de Sousa of the AP.

Federal University of Espírito Santo paleontologist Taissa Rodrigues tells National Geographic’s Michael Greshko that some of the metal cabinets housing fossils may have survived, although it’s unclear whether the artifacts inside could have withstood the fire. According to the AP, firefighters excavating the scene have found various bone fragments, triggering hopes that the 11,500-year-old skull of an early hominin named Luiza may still be recovered. All materials collected from the scene will be examined by federal law enforcement, who are working to determine the cause of the fire, before being sent on to experts for identification.

Preliminary reports list the institution’s entomology and arachnology collections, roughly 700 Egyptian artifacts and a Royal Hawaiian feather cloak gifted to emperor Dom Pedro I in 1824 amongst the items feared lost. Artnet News’ Henri Neuendorf has a more comprehensive list of the museum’s prized treasures, most of which were likely damaged or completely destroyed.

According to Brazilian culture minister Sérgio Leitão, an electrical short circuit or a paper hot-air balloon that landed on the museum’s roof was the likely cause of the fire. The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts, Dom Phillips and Sam Jones report, however, that the underlying factors at play were severe budget cuts and outdated fire prevention systems.

National Geographic’s Greshko notes that the National Museum hasn’t received its full annual budget of $128,000 since 2014. This year, it received just $13,000. In late 2017, curators were so strapped for cash they had to crowdfund repairs of a popular exhibition hall that had been infested with termites.

Museum vice director Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte told Brazilian television that staff members knew the building was in critical condition. Before leaving at the end of each day, he unplugged all of the items in his office to minimize fire risk. Duarte further argued that even a quarter of the money budgeted for a single 2014 World Cup stadium (the Foundation for Economic Education’s David Youngberg reports that Rio spent $15 billion on the Cup and $13.1 billion on the 2016 Olympics) “would have been enough to make this museum safe and resplendent.”

The day after the fire, protestors gathered outside of the museum’s gates, demanding that authorities reveal the extent of the damage and pledge to rebuild. According to the AP’s Peter Prengaman and Sarah DiLorenzo, when the protestors attempted to see the damage, police held them back using pepper spray, tear gas and batons.

Soon after the fire, a group of students at UNIRIO, the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, put out a global request for photographs and video clips taken at the museum. Atlas Obscura’s Sarah Laskow reports that the students have already received thousands of contributions, which they hope to eventually compile into a “virtual museum or a memory space of some sort.” As Laskow notes, these images “preserve, at least in some form, what remains of the history the museum was meant to protect.” Relevant photos or videos should be emailed to thg.museo@gmail.com.

On Tuesday, Wikipedia posted a similar Twitter announcement calling for users to upload their personal snapshots of the museum to Wikimedia Commons, its open access repository of images.

Other efforts are forthcoming. According to Forbes’ Kristina Killgrove, Thomas Flynn, cultural heritage lead at 3D modeling website Sketchfab, has posted 25 virtual renderings of museum artifacts to his profile page. All models are available to the public.

Jorge Lopes dos Santos, a 3D modeling expert at the museum, tells Killgrove that prior to the fire, the digital modeling team successfully completed “hundreds of scans of several important artifacts of the collection, including fossils, Egyptian mummies, the Luzia skull and others, and Greek and Roman artifacts.” As recovery efforts move forward, he says that the team will “discuss how the files will be used.”

The Rio fire has brought much-needed attention to the risks faced by cultural institutions across the globe. In addition to receiving increasingly scarce financial support, museums are more susceptible to natural hazards than one might think.

As Hugh Eakin notes for the Washington Post, New York’s Museum of Modern Art burst into flames back in April 1958, destroying one of Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” paintings but leaving most of the collection unscathed. In more recent examples, Rotterdam’s world-class Old Masters and modern European art gallery, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, experienced five floods over the past 14 years and is currently constructing an estimated $70 million flood-proof storage facility. In 2016, an inferno gutted India’s National Museum of Natural History in New Delhi, and the year before that, another Brazilian institution, the Museum of the Portuguese Language in Sao Paulo, suffered a similar fate.

Some museums are readily attuned to these dangers: Los Angeles’ Getty Center and New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art are both equipped with lavish protective systems. But most institutions can’t afford such expensive tools. Brazil’s National Museum, for example, had no working sprinkler system, and the two hydrants closest to the building malfunctioned when firefighters arrived at the scene.

Popular Science’s Eleanor Cummins points out that natural disasters aren’t the only threat to museums: “Museum science is a race against time,” she writes, “and budget cuts, staff reductions, and declining visitation in countries around the world, the United States included, aren’t making anyone’s job any easier.”

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, government officials pledged $2.4 million for the extensive rebuilding process that lies ahead. Museum director Alexander Kellner tells Scientific American’s Richard Conniff that initial funds will go toward stabilizing what remains of the building and recovering all that “can be recovered.” Another $1.2 million may be allocated for making the structure “habitable,” and officials are discussing the “possibility for next year” of granting an additional $19.2 million for the actual rebuilding of the museum.

“What we mostly need is a strong commitment from the Brazil government, or even private enterprise, to provide the means for scientists to be restored to minimal working conditions,” Buckup says. “We have lost lots of history. What we cannot afford to lose is the future of science in this institution.”

On Wednesday, the directors of 12 of the world’s most prominent natural history museums released a statement of solidarity highlighting the importance of such institutions and promising to support Brazilian colleagues in the coming “weeks, months and years.” Kirk Johnson, head of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who was one of the signatories, further stated that curators were working “on a larger Smithsonian effort as well.”

Much of the chaos wrought by the inferno is irreversible. Researchers whose life’s work drew on specimens held within the museum now find themselves “lost,” as entomologist Marcus Guidoti tells National Geographic’s Greshko. Funds and support offered by Brazil’s government and outside institutions may help to soften the blow, but the fact remains that a priceless repository of Latin American cultural heritage has vanished overnight.

Still, Brazilians remain cautiously optimistic about the arduous journey that lies ahead. Curator Débora Pires notes that the museum still has its team of dedicated researchers, adding, “The brains did not burn. We are working with a positive agenda.” Anthropologist Antonio Carlos de Souza Lima tells NPR’s Ari Shapiro that the loss of his 38 years of research on indigenous cultures is “very, very small” compared to what Brazilians have lost as a country and intellectual community.

It would be easy to yield to depression, Souza Lima says, but he and his colleagues plan on fighting for their country’s future instead.

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Reposted from ZDNet

Threat actors from Iran have been targeting universities and educational institutions across 14 countries in a bid to steal intellectual property.

The Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said on Friday that the campaign is likely the work of who they call Cobalt Dickens, an Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) group.

The researchers have connected Cobalt Dickens to the Iranian government and in March nine apparent members of the group were indicted for conducting a series of attacks on universities and companies on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The Mabna Institute, working as part of Cobalt Dickens, allegedly stole information from 76 universities across 21 countries, as well as 47 US and foreign private sector companies, including the US Department of Labor and the United Nations.

In the latest wave of attacks, a total of 76 universities in 14 countries have been targeted including institutions in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, China, and Switzerland.

After discovering a spoof website which masqueraded as one of the target universities, CTU uncovered a wider campaign designed to steal credentials from academic staff.

In total, 16 domains have been used by the threat actors to host over 300 spoofed websites, including university login pages and online libraries.

Targets are sent links to the fraudulent domains through phishing emails. If victims fall for the messages and enter their credentials into the spoofed pages, they are then sent onwards to the real service while this information is saved by the cyberattackers to gain access to legitimate systems.

"Numerous spoofed domains referenced the targeted universities' online library systems, indicating the threat actors' intent to gain access to these resources," CTU says.

The majority of the domains were registered between May and August 2018. The campaign appears to be ongoing, as the latest domain registration took place on August 19.

Universities are a constant target for cyberattackers due to heavy involvement in academia and research projects. Intellectual property can be extremely valuable, especially when research is involved in areas such as technology and defense.

The research team has contacted global partners to warn them of the latest phishing scheme.

"This widespread spoofing of login pages to steal credentials reinforces the need for organizations to incorporate multi-factor authentication using secure protocols and implement complex password requirements on publicly accessible systems," the researchers said. 

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