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Ex-DC Metro contractor logged in to sensitive system from Russia, watchdog finds | CNN Politics

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Ex-DC Metro contractor logged in to sensitive system from Russia, watchdog finds | CNN Politics




CNN
 — 

A former Washington, DC, Metro transit system contractor retained access to “critical and sensitive” Metro data from his computer in Russia after he left his job in a breach that raises broader security concerns about one of the nation’s largest transit systems, according to a report released Wednesday.

The cybersecurity vulnerabilities of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are “a cause of grave concern” that the authority’s networks are “at unacceptable risk” of hacking or other forms of compromise, a report from the WMATA’s inspector general concluded.

It’s the latest in a series of warnings from auditors over years that a transit system that serves hundreds of thousands of people each day in the nation’s capital could be susceptible to sabotage or data theft.

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The report comes as the WMATA continues to embrace digital technologies that, if unsecured, could open up further avenues for hackers. In 2019, US lawmakers blocked WMATA from using Chinese made rail cars out of concerns that they presented cybersecurity risks.

In response to the new inspector general report, WMATA said it had made “measurable improvements” to its cybersecurity in recent years. WMATA also said Microsoft, which it hired to investigate the remote login from Russia, found no sign of ongoing malicious cyber activity on the network.

The Washington Post first reported on the inspector general’s findings.

Officials from the inspector general’s office have in recent weeks raised their concerns about the WMATA’s cybersecurity practices with congressional committees and multiple federal agencies, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

The top security incident flagged in the report came in January, when WMATA’s cybersecurity team found “abnormal” activity on the transit authority’s network that they traced to Russia. There, an ex-contractor was still accessing sensitive data on the network, according to the inspector general report.

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WMATA hired the contractor through a US-based firm to work on sensitive applications, including the app that customers used to pay for trips. The contractor’s supervisor allowed the Russia-based worker to retain the high-level access to WMATA networks out of hope that the contract would be renewed, investigators found.

WMATA did not immediately respond to CNN’s question of whether anyone at the transit authority had been disciplined over the incident.

The inspector general report did not identify the US-based company working with WMATA that had outsourced its IT work to Russia. That practice is unusual at a time when many Western tech companies have left Russia over the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.

The inspector general’s office said it wasn’t done investigating WMATA’s cybersecurity practices. The watchdog plans to review how WMATA handles background investigations after discovering that the transit authority outsources those investigations to contractors.

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Washington

Deputy fatally shoots seven starving, abandoned dogs

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Deputy fatally shoots seven starving, abandoned dogs


Arriving at a rural property, an Arizona sheriff’s deputy approaches a group of starving dogs behind a chain-link fence. Some are sleeping, while others bark and wag their tails. The deputy lays out food and water to corral them, body-camera video shows.

“This is going to suck,” he says.

The deputy then pulls out a handgun and shoots the dogs one by one, killing seven, before dragging their bloodied bodies to his truck, according to the video. He later dumped the canines’ bodies near railroad tracks, an incident report says.

The Apache County Sheriff’s Office, which serves roughly 65,000 people, maintains that the deputy did nothing wrong that day in September. Chief Deputy Roscoe Herrera said that since the county has no animal control service, deputies have discretion to handle animal issues as they see fit. The deputy, Jarrod Toadecheenie, declined to comment.

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But the incident in Adamana, Ariz. — an unincorporated community about 100 miles east of Flagstaff — has outraged local animal advocates who say that shooting the dogs was the wrong solution and that the area desperately needs to address animal hoarding and abandonment. Some residents have launched Facebook groups to try to find homes for abandoned dogs and to expose people who illegally hoard animals.

“The Apache County Sheriff’s Office won’t do anything to fix the problem,” said Teresa Schumann, founder of the nonprofit Northern Arizona Animal Search and Rescue. “Animals are dying everywhere in the county.”

Molly Ottman, executive editor of the Mountain Daily Star, first obtained the body-camera footage of the incident and shared it with The Washington Post.

The dogs who were shot were owned by a divorcing couple who had abandoned the property, Toadecheenie wrote in the incident report. He wrote that he visited the home several times over a span of three weeks after neighbors called to complain about the canines.

On the first visit, he counted 10 dogs, “all of which seemed to be in good health.” A few days later, the deputy wrote, he responded to a call that the dogs had chased a neighbor’s donkey.

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Toadecheenie contacted Schumann, who said she was struggling to find new owners for the dogs when the deputy called and said he would “handle it.” Schumann said she told him the dogs may need to be euthanized if they were feral.

On Sept. 22, Schumann told Toadecheenie that she hadn’t been able to find new homes for the dogs. After telling his supervisor that he planned to shoot the dogs, the deputy bought dog food and a tray, and collected water from a fire station.

Then he went to the couple’s property, corralled the dogs with the food and water, put on headphones and began to shoot the canines, the body-camera footage shows. Toadecheenie shot one dog two additional times as it continued to move.

Two dogs ran away uninjured and hid under a shed. They were later brought to a local animal shelter by Schumann. One died of parvovirus shortly after arriving, and the other was adopted, said Brandon Smigiel, a supervisor at Holbrook Animal Care and Control.

In the incident report, Toadecheenie recommended that the couple who allegedly abandoned the dogs be charged with animal cruelty. No charges had been filed as of Friday, according to county records.

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Herrera, the sheriff’s chief deputy, acknowledged that the situation had caused the community “distress.”

“This tragic decision was made under extremely difficult circumstances due to a combination of limited resources, the willful neglect and abandonment of the dogs by their original owners, and the considerable amount of time spent seeking assistance from outside resources,” he said in a statement to The Post.

In a separate statement provided to KPNX 12 News on June 6, the sheriff’s office seemed to blame a lack of funding.

“Apache County does not have an animal care and control department. In the unincorporated areas that responsibility is left up to the deputies and actions taken vary and are considered on a case-by-case basis. We do not have the infrastructure or budget to support such a department.”

Schumann, who runs the rescue nonprofit, said she never thought the deputy would shoot the animals.

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“It infuriates me when the sheriff’s office says they don’t have the resources” to handle animal situations differently, she said. “There are plenty of people who are trying to help.”

The Arizona Humane Society called the situation “entirely preventable” and lamented that the sheriff’s office had not asked it for help.

“This awful incident lacked all compassion and judgement,” Jennifer Armbruster, a spokeswoman for the humane society, said in a statement. “And what is most clear is that establishing an animal care and control service in Apache County is an absolute necessity to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”

Animal hoarding is at “epidemic levels” in Arizona, creating dangerous situations, said Terri Hoffman, founder of Animal Rights Champions of Arizona. Last summer, three mixed-breed pit bulls mauled a 2-year-old Apache County girl to death. Still, Hoffman said that she wants the deputy to be held accountable and that killing abandoned dogs is not an appropriate solution to hoarding.

“I’ve been to homes where there’s over 53 dogs,” Hoffman said. “Some people hoard horses and goats out here, too. I’ve seen dogs with open wounds, severe infections. Animals are dying.”

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Woman dies after dog attack, Baltimore police say

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Woman dies after dog attack, Baltimore police say


A woman reportedly died after being attacked by dogs in Baltimore on Friday night, the city’s police department said.

Preliminary information indicated that a 50-year-old woman died of injuries suffered in an attack by two stray pit bulls, according to an emailed statement from a police spokesman.

Officers went to the 2000 block of N. Pulaski Street about 9 p.m. in response to a report of a dog bite, the brief statement said.

On arriving, officers “were informed” that the stray pit bulls had attacked three victims and that one, the 50-year old woman, “succumbed to her injuries,” the statement said.

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No information was available about the condition of the other two victims.

Two officers fired shots, and one dog was hit, the police said.

Both dogs were seized by the police and by the city’s animal control department, the police said.

The site is a residential street, lined with many two-story rowhouses with the traditional white marble steps leading from the sidewalk to their front doors. It is in the Mondawmin neighborhood, five or six miles northwest of the Inner Harbor.



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Man sentenced to over 9 years in prison after robbing Washington Square Mall stores at knifepoint

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Man sentenced to over 9 years in prison after robbing Washington Square Mall stores at knifepoint


PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was sentenced to more than nine years in prison after being convicted of robbery and other charges when he stole from multiple stores at knifepoint inside the Washington Square Mall last year.

Jesus Esteban Flores was sentenced to 109 months in prison and three years of supervised release for the crimes, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office announced on Friday.

Officials said Flores began a spree of crimes in a short period of time after he entered the Southwest Portland mall on September 17, 2023. Placing a large kitchen knife on a shoe counter, he asked a department store clerk for a pair of shoes in his size. Flores took them without paying, shoplifted a hat from an adjacent store then went outside to slip the shoes on.

He re-entered the mall, went to a different store, tried to steal multiple shirts by hiding them under his clothes, and was confronted by an employee. The employee backed off after Flores showed the person a knife in his waistband and stepped toward them. Flores verbally threatened the victim and brandished the knife in hand as he exited the store.

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Soon, the security officers of the Washington Square Mall began to take action. One followed Flores throughout the mall. Noticing he was being trailed, Flores threatened the security officer, pointing his knife and making threats on their life outside a main mall entrance. The security officer backed off but other security officers watched from afar and alerted law enforcement.

What ensued was a confrontation between Flores on a bicycle and the Tigard Police Department that ultimately ended in his arrest. As the Washington County District Attorney’s Office explained in a release:

“Tigard police officers confronted the defendant as he attempted to leave the area on a bike. They identified themselves and ordered him to drop the knife. After the defendant refused multiple orders, they fired 40mm less lethal foam rounds at the defendant. Officers then seized the knife, returned the merchandise, and took the defendant to jail.”

Last week, a Washington County jury convicted Flores of two counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree theft. He will serve his sentence at the Oregon Department of Corrections.

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