Infosec in brief On August 29, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency fired its CISO, CIO, and 22 other staff for incompetence but insisted it wasn't in response to an online attack. New material suggests FEMA's claim may be false. According to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, an audit found serious security problems at FEMA and revealed that "entrenched bureaucrats" had lied about the agency's security preparedness. "These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens' personal data, so I terminated them immediately," she said. Crucially, Noem said no data had been lost but it appears that's not the case. According to a presentation passed to Nextgov, attackers broke into FEMA in June using stolen credentials to access a Citrix system. The attackers then uploaded data from FEMA's Region 6 servers, covering Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. According to the documents, FEMA didn't discover the attack until July. By July, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was telling agencies to patch against so-called CitrixBleed 2 attacks that exploited a CVSS 9.3 bug in Netscaler's ADC and Gateway platforms that would allow miscreants to steal sensitive data such as session tokens and bypass multi-factor authentication. There were warnings that the bug was being exploited back in June, but it seems they weren't heeded. Now, it appears, FEMA's IT department is getting a compl...
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which FEMA systems and regions were reportedly affected?
According to a presentation passed to Nextgov, attackers accessed a Citrix system using stolen credentials and uploaded data from FEMA Region 6 servers. The affected region covers Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Was data loss confirmed in the reported FEMA incident?
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said no data had been lost. However, the presentation reportedly states that attackers uploaded data from FEMA servers, which contradicts that claim.
When did FEMA reportedly detect the intrusion, and what vulnerability was relevant?
The documents reportedly say the intrusion began in June and was not discovered until July. By July, CISA was advising agencies to patch for CitrixBleed 2 attacks exploiting a CVSS 9.3 Netscaler vulnerability.
Why were FEMA personnel fired, according to the article?
FEMA said the dismissals were for incompetence and not in response to an online attack. Noem said an audit identified serious security problems and alleged that staff had misrepresented the agency's security preparedness.