Today, the AMBER Alert system is being used in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Indian country, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and internationally in 31 countries. As of December 31, 2023, 1,200 children were successfully recovered through the AMBER Alert system and at least 180 children were rescued because of wireless emergency alerts. There are 82 AMBER Alert plans throughout the United States.
The AMBER Alert in Indian Country (AIIC) Initiative assists Tribal communities in developing programs to safely recover endangered missing or abducted children through the coordinated efforts of the Tribes and their local, state and federal partners by using training and technology to enhance response capacities, capabilities and increase public participation in protecting children.
The guide features parents who have experienced firsthand both the anguish and hope of finding their missing child. The fifth edition helps families identify, prioritize, and take actions that can assist law enforcement efforts to locate their children and return them home safely.
AMBER Alert Best Practices, Second Edition provides updated guidelines to help states and regional offices recover abducted children through AMBER Alerts. The 2019 second edition of the guide provides a "what works" approach based on input of those who lead and oversee AMBER Alerts as part of larger missing persons and child protection programs at the state and regional levels.
Designed to help law enforcement officers improve their response to cases of missing or abducted children, the guide provides best practices from subject matter experts in AMBER Alert programs nationwide. Topics include establishing and managing leads, search and recovery operations, screening and training volunteers, interacting with abduction victims' families, managing media, and more.
Implementation of the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act of 2018: A Report to Congress provides Congress with an assessment of the readiness, education and training needs, technological challenges, and obstacles encountered by tribes in the integration of state or regional AMBER Alert communication plans.
The information and statements contained on this official Department of Justice AMBER Alert website shall not be used for the purposes of advertising, nor to imply the endorsement or recommendation of the United States Government. Use of the AMBER Alert logo is subject to the Department of Justice legal policies and disclaimers regarding the use of DOJ seals and logos.
Reference herein (including any document posted hereon or linked hereto) to any specific AMBER or AMBER-related commercial products, processes, or services by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government.
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This joint Technical Alert (TA) is the result of analytic efforts between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This alert provides information on Russian government actions targeting U.S. Government entities as well as organizations in the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors. It also contains indicators of compromise (IOCs) and technical details on the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by Russian government cyber actors on compromised victim networks. DHS and FBI produced this alert to educate network defenders to enhance their ability to identify and reduce exposure to malicious activity.
Analysis by DHS and FBI, resulted in the identification of distinct indicators and behaviors related to this activity. Of note, the report Dragonfly: Western energy sector targeted by sophisticated attack group, released by Symantec on September 6, 2017, provides additional information about this ongoing campaign. [1]
The threat actors appear to have deliberately chosen the organizations they targeted, rather than pursuing them as targets of opportunity. Staging targets held preexisting relationships with many of the intended targets. DHS analysis identified the threat actors accessing publicly available information hosted by organization-monitored networks during the reconnaissance phase. Based on forensic analysis, DHS assesses the threat actors sought information on network and organizational design and control system capabilities within organizations. These tactics are commonly used to collect the information needed for targeted spear-phishing attempts. In some cases, information posted to company websites, especially information that may appear to be innocuous, may contain operationally sensitive information. As an example, the threat actors downloaded a small photo from a publicly accessible human resources page. The image, when expanded, was a high-resolution photo that displayed control systems equipment models and status information in the background.
In previous reporting, DHS and FBI noted that all of these spear-phishing emails referred to control systems or process control systems. The threat actors continued using these themes specifically against intended target organizations. Email messages included references to common industrial control equipment and protocols. The emails used malicious Microsoft Word attachments that appeared to be legitimate rsums or curricula vitae (CVs) for industrial control systems personnel, and invitations and policy documents to entice the user to open the attachment.
The threat actors used distinct and unusual TTPs in the phishing campaign directed at staging targets. Emails contained successive redirects to [.]ly/2m0x8IH link, which redirected to [.]com/h3sdqck link, which redirected to the ultimate destination of [.]com/nitel. The imageliner[.]com website contained input fields for an email address and password mimicking a login page for a website.
DHS observed the threat actors using this and similar scripts to create multiple accounts within staging target networks. Each account created by the threat actors served a specific purpose in their operation. These purposes ranged from the creation of additional accounts to cleanup of activity. DHS and FBI observed the following actions taken after the creation of these local accounts:
Account 1: Account 1 was named to mimic backup services of the staging target. This account was created by the malicious script described earlier. The threat actor used this account to conduct open-source reconnaissance and remotely access intended targets.
Account 4: In the latter stage of the compromise, the threat actor used Account 1 to create Account 4, a local administrator account. Account 4 was then used to delete logs and cover tracks.
After achieving access to staging targets, the threat actors installed tools to carry out operations against intended victims. On one occasion, threat actors installed the free version of FortiClient, which they presumably used as a VPN client to connect to intended target networks.
Consistent with the perceived goal of credential harvesting, the threat actors dropped and executed open source and free tools such as Hydra, SecretsDump, and CrackMapExec. The naming convention and download locations suggest that these files were downloaded directly from publically available locations such as GitHub. Forensic analysis indicates that many of these tools were executed during the timeframe in which the actor was accessing the system. Of note, the threat actors installed Python 2.7 on a compromised host of one staging victim, and a Python script was seen at C:\Users\\Desktop\OWAExchange\.
DHS and FBI identified the threat actors leveraging remote access services and infrastructure such as VPN, RDP, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). The threat actors used the infrastructure of staging targets to connect to several intended targets.
The threat actors targeted and copied profile and configuration information for accessing ICS systems on the network. DHS observed the threat actors copying Virtual Network Connection (VNC) profiles that contained configuration information on accessing ICS systems. DHS was able to reconstruct screenshot fragments of a Human Machine Interface (HMI) that the threat actors accessed.
In multiple instances, the threat actors created new accounts on the staging targets to perform cleanup operations. The accounts created were used to clear the following Windows event logs: System, Security, Terminal Services, Remote Services, and Audit. The threat actors also removed applications they installed while they were in the network along with any logs produced. For example, the Fortinet client installed at one commercial facility was deleted along with the logs that were produced from its use. Finally, data generated by other accounts used on the systems accessed were deleted.
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