DETROIT – Being on an International border is always a hot topic when it comes to security. News this week concerns the precedent set by a search of electronic media on the US/Canada border that ended up overturning a child pornographers appeal to have evidence obtained on his return from the Philippines thrown out of court.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit late last month held that customs officers need no reasonable suspicion to search through the contents of any individual’s laptop at the country’s borders.

For more detail, see ComputerWorld.

Save the date for the 4th Annual GFIRST National Conference to be hosted June 1-6, 2008 at the Caribe Royale in Orlando Florida. I have stayed at this resort in the past, and it is sweet! Visiting Disney while in the area is pretty easy too, since the park entrance is less than 5 minutes away (if you get tired of the whole security thing). The 2008 conference theme is Uniting the Cyber Response Community. You can email US-Cert.Gov/GFirst

Use your InfraGard VPN connection to view the below security documents that were released in May:

1. A Major Us Oil Company Victim Of Social Engineering Scam

2. Open Source Client Anonymizes Second Life Users

3. Extremists Interest in Using Chemical Weapons against the United States

4. Hacked Website Alleges Turkish Cyber Agenda

5. Outgoing Traffic to Foreign Entities Stemming from Identified US County Government Computer System

6. Telephone Proxy Service Using Voice Over Internet Protocol Technology Provides Potential for Electronic Fraud

7. Romanian Cyber Criminals Used Fraud Descriptors As Part Of The Email Addresses To Perpetrate Online Criminal Activity

8. The Patriotic Nigras Launch Virtual World Attacks with Real World Consequences

9. Nigerian Criminal Enterprise Defrauding US Law Firms through International Check Fraud Scheme

10. Major US Oil Company Vulnerable To Scada Attacks Through PBX Intrusion

This column was written by Hans Erickson, Communications officer for Michigan InfraGard. If you have story ideas, you can email Hans at email [email protected]<

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