Tag Archive for: Bay

Family of Security Guard Shot in Oakland Speaks Out, Asks Public for Help in Finding Suspect – NBC Bay Area

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The family of the private security guard who died after being shot while on assignment in Oakland last week spoke out Friday, asking the public’s help in seeking the person responsible.

“We’ve heard so far that there were people doing video with their cell phones .. and we’d like them,” said wife Virginia Nishita. “I beg you, please come forward.”

Kevin’s wife said she was stunned Kevin was shot in an attempted armed robbery of a news crew in downtown Oakland on Nov. 24 and died days later. But not surprised her husband put himself in jeopardy for the sake of others.

“That was his personality, to be that protector, to be that brave one,” she said. “He just wanted to protect people. Not just his family but others as well.”

Still the senseless nature of the crime has left the family heartbroken and demanding answers.

“We just need the closure. We don’t like this open, not knowing how someone we loved passed away. We just need to know and have peace,” and said Kevin’s daughter Maureen Campos.

Kevin was employed by Star Protection Agency California and working with a KRON4 reporter at the time of the shooting.

“He didn’t deserve this. He was retired,” said Kevin’s son Enrique Nishita. “He just looking to stay busy, we just wish he could come home.”

The family says it is still working on memorial services and they take some satisfaction in hearing Oakland is now taking action including a plan to hire more police officers.

“This is justice for Kevin. He was a security guard, and he was out there to protect the newscast … and we need justice for him,” said Virginia.

A reward of $32,500 is being offered to anyone with information that may lead to an arrest.

Kevin Nishita, a security guard protecting a news crew died days following a gunfire battle. Former coworkers and friends remember him and mourn his passing. Sergio Quintana reports.

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Journalist warns Missouri about security breach. He’s threatened with criminal charges. – East Bay Times

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday condemned the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for exposing a flaw in a state database that allowed public access to thousands of teachers’ Social Security numbers, even though the paper held off from reporting about the flaw until after the state could fix it.

Parson told reporters outside his Capitol office that the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s digital forensic unit will be conducting an investigation “of all of those involved” and that his administration had spoken to the prosecutor in Cole County.

The governor suggested that the Post-Dispatch journalist who broke the story committed a crime and said the news outlet would be held accountable.

The state’s schools department had earlier referred to the reporter who broke the story as “a hacker.”

The Post-Dispatch broke the news about the security flaw on Wednesday. The newspaper said it discovered the vulnerability in a web application that allowed the public to search teacher certifications and credentials.

It notified the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and gave it time to fix the problem before the story was published.

After removing the pages from its website Tuesday, the agency issued a news release that called the person who discovered the vulnerability a “hacker” — an apparent reference to the reporter — who “took the records of at least three educators.” The agency didn’t elaborate as to what it meant by “took the records” and it declined to discuss the issue further when reached by The Associated Press.

The Post-Dispatch journalist found that the school workers’ Social Security numbers were in the HTML source code of the pages. It estimated that more than 100,000 Social Security numbers were vulnerable.

Source codes are accessible by right-clicking on public webpages.

The newspaper’s president and publisher, Ian Caso, said in a statement that the Post-Dispatch stands by the story and  journalist Josh Renaud, who he said “did everything right.”

“It’s regrettable the governor has chosen to deflect blame onto the journalists who uncovered the website’s problem and brought it to the Department of Elementary…

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Hacker allegedly tried to poison San Francisco Bay Area water supply

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A hacker allegedly tried to poison water being processed at a San Francisco Bay Area water treatment plant, according to an NBC News report late last week.

The attack took place on Jan. 15 and involved the person gaining access to the water treatment plant network by using a former employee’s TeamViewer account credentials. Having gained access to the plant, the person then deleted programs that the water plant uses to treat drinking water.

According to a confidential report compiled by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center and seen by NBC, the hack was not discovered until the following day. The facility subsequently changed its passwords and reinstalled the programs. “No failures were reported as a result of this incident and no individuals in the city reported illness from water-related failures,” the report noted.

Michael Sena, the executive director of NCRIC, denied the report. “No one tried to poison any of our water. That is not accurate,” Sena told the San Franciso Chronicle, noting that tampering with computer programs would be unlikely to result in poisoning.

“It takes a lot to influence a water supply chain,” Sena explained. “For a large impact, there has to be a large change in the chemicals in the system. The amount of chemicals it would take to cause harm to people…. The numbers are astronomical.”

The Bay Area’s water supply threat is not the first compromise of a treatment plant and will likely not be the last. In February, an unknown attacker accessed a water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida, and attempted to poison the water supply by increasing the flow of sodium hydroxide to toxic levels. In that case, the attacker was detected before the water supply could be affected.

“While it’s important to keep an eye on major events, we should also avoid oversensationalized headlines intended to spread fear,” Chris Grove, technology evangelist at critical infrastructure security specialist Nozomi Networks Inc., told SiliconANGLE. “Some headlines are taking the action of deleting code and jumping to attempted mass poisoning. There was not an attempt at poisoning the water supply.”

That said, he added, “this…

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Hacker Accessed Bay Area Water Treatment Computer System

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(TNS) — A hacker accessed the computer system of a Bay Area water treatment plant in January and deleted programs the plant used to treat drinking water, a senior intelligence official confirmed Thursday.

NBC News first reported Thursday that the unidentified hacker used a former plant employee’s username and password to gain entry to the unidentified Bay Area water treatment facility on Jan. 15.

Michael Sena, executive director of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, confirmed NBC’s report about the security breach, but declined to say where it occurred or who carried it out.


Sena also declined to say whether the hacker would face criminal prosecution.

The NBC report stated that the hacker “tried to poison” the Bay Area water supply, an assertion Sena disputed.

“No one tried to poison any of our water,” he said. “That is not accurate”

Tampering with the computer programs used to treat drinking water would be unlikely to result in any widespread poisoning, Sena said.

“It takes a lot to influence a water supply chain,” he said. “For a large impact, there has to be a large change in the chemicals in the system. The amount of chemicals it would take to cause harm to people…the numbers are astronomical.”

The Jan. 15 hack represented “no specific threat to public safety,” he added.

News of the breach comes as officials continue to investigate May’s Colonial Pipeline cyber attack, which shuttered gas stations from Texas to New Jersey and raised new concerns about the vulnerability of American infrastructure.

The San Francisco-based Northern California Regional Intelligence Center works with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to track suspicious activity, criminal activity and threats to the region’s infrastructure.

© 2021 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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