Bird Flu Abuse: A Broken Trust Chain Problem

victor | 10 February, 2006 19:20

As the bird flu problem gets closer and closer to Lebanon, I have been informed of some people making use of the safeless state that people are going through to achieve success in other illegal actions such as theft, drug abuse, rapes, etc.

This message is of two parts:

The first is humanitarian and simply asks you NOT to open the door to anyone who claims to be from the Ministry of Health in Lebanon to give you Bird Flu vacancies. These people simply drug victims and rob appartments!

The second part is related to security and serves as a valid up-to-date example of how a broken trust-chain can be misused by criminals. In this type of security attacks, criminals are pretending to be from the Ministry of Health. People, driven by the search for being safe of this lethal disease, simply forget to ask for a proof of authenticity. The "doctor" simply goes in, takes out a needle, puts some "trojaned-drug" in it, and "vaccinates" the victim. Trojaned because the drug that is supposed to protect from Bird Flu is actually putting the victim into a deep sleep.

In this simple example, while taking into consideration how tragic the result can be, we find a simple proof of how broken trust chains can be easily used to bypass authenticity.

A lesson to the Lebanese Government, in general, and to the Ministry of Health, in particular, from this fact is that the minimum required proof of authenticity is to have an identity card (Yes a simple card similar to the ones that the Police use in Western Movies, it is that simple I know ;). This identity card must show the picture, name and job title of the person working for the ministry. A stamp, as well, must be provided as a proof of trust.

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Comments

Bird Flu

sarah hajj | 12/02/2006, 19:19

welcome to lebanon,you should be used to it by now, it is the worst chaos that would ever appear

Bird Flu Abuse

maurice | 12/02/2006, 07:20

and they blame foreign interference for not issuing identity cards!!!!
and the chaos in the state goes on....

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Who am I?

I am experienced in Internet technologies, Web Services and Online Interactive solutions. I am very interested in challenges related to web services engineering especially complex and hybrid online solutions (Intranet, Extranet, e-Commerce, etc.) and algorithms (search engines, security, etc.)

I am experienced in security as well. My expertise is mainly in network and Internet security. I am also experienced in the fields of cryptography, security assessment techniques, security design (policies, profiles, architectures, etc.) as well as security auditing and ethical hacking.

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