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The NSA has released a security advisory warning of the dangers of TLS inspection:

Transport Layer Security Inspection (TLSI), also known as TLS break and inspect, is a security process that allows enterprises to decrypt traffic, inspect the decrypted content for threats, and then re-encrypt the traffic before it enters or leaves the network. Introducing this capability into an enterprise enhances visibility within boundary security products, but introduces new risks. These risks, while not inconsequential, do have mitigations.

The primary risk involved with TLSIs embedded CA is the potential abuse of the CA to issue unauthorized certificates trusted by the TLS clients. Abuse of a trusted CA can allow an adversary to sign malicious code to bypass host IDS/IPSs or to deploy malicious services that impersonate legitimate enterprise services to the hosts.

A further risk of introducing TLSI is that an adversary can focus their exploitation efforts on a single device where potential traffic of interest is decrypted, rather than try to exploit each location where the data is stored.Setting a policy to enforce that traffic is decrypted and inspected only as authorized, and ensuring that decrypted traffic is contained in an out-of-band, isolated segment of the network prevents unauthorized access to the decrypted traffic.

To minimize the risks described above, breaking and inspecting TLS traffic should only be conducted once within the enterprise network. Redundant TLSI, wherein a client-server traffic flow is decrypted, inspected, and re-encrypted by one forward proxy and is then forwarded to a second forward proxy for more of the same,should not be performed.Inspecting multiple times can greatly complicate diagnosing network issues with TLS traffic. Also, multi-inspection further obscures certificates when trying to ascertain whether a server should be trusted. In this case, the outermost proxy makes the decisions on what server certificates or CAs should be trusted and is the only location where certificate pinning can be performed.Finally, a single TLSI implementation is sufficient for detecting encrypted traffic threats; additional TLSI will have access to the same traffic. If the first TLSI implementation detected a threat, killed the session, and dropped the traffic, then additional TLSI implementations would be rendered useless since they would not even receive the dropped traffic for further inspection. Redundant TLSI increases the risk surface, provides additional opportunities for adversaries to gain unauthorized access to decrypted traffic, and offers no additional benefits.

Nothing surprising or novel. No operational information about who might be implementing these attacks. No classified information revealed.

News article.

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*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Schneier on Security authored by Bruce Schneier. Read the original post at: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/11/the_nsa_warns_o.html

Read more:
The NSA Warns of TLS Inspection - Security Boulevard

The U.P. government on Monday approved the invocation of the National Security Act (NSA) against a Delhi-based builder for illegally constructing flats in Greater Noidas Shahberi, where nine people were killed in two building collapses last year.

Officials said that the builder, Jasvir Mann (36), had constructed and sold the maximum number of flats in the area. He had illegally developed 261 flats in Shahberi and sold around 170 of them, they said, adding that the flats were developed in buildings which did not have requisite permission, approved maps and had come up illegally on the land notified by the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority.

Mr. Mann was arrested under the Gangster Act on October 1. The district administration had on October 15 proposed his detention under the NSA.

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U.P. govt. approves NSA invocation against builder - The Hindu

Pimavanserin appears to benefit patients with predominantly negative symptoms of schizophrenia, according to top-line results from a phase 2 trial.

The ADVANCE study was a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that evaluated the safety and efficacy of adjunctive pimavanserin in patients with schizophrenia who have predominant negative symptoms while on a stable background antipsychotic therapy (N=403). The primary end point of the study was change from baseline to Week 26 in the Negative Symptom Assessment-16 (NSA-16) total score.

Results showed that treatment with pimavanserin led to a greater improvement in the NSA-16 total score compared with placebo (-10.4 vs. -8.5; P =.043; effect size = 0.21). Moreover, a greater improvement in NSA-16 total score vs placebo was observed in the 107 patients who received pimavanserin 34mg (-11.6 vs. -8.5; unadjusted P =.0065, effect size = 0.34). An additional trial evaluating the 34mg dose is expected to begin in the first half of 2020.

In July 2019, Acadia announced that the ENHANCE trial, which evaluated adjunctive pimavanserin in patients with schizophrenia who had not achieved an adequate response on their current antipsychotic treatment, did not meet its primary end point (change from baseline in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale [PANSS] total score), however significant improvements were observed in PANSS negative symptoms scale sub-score (P=.0474; secondary end point).

The negative symptoms of schizophrenia such as social withdrawal, apathy, anhedonia, loss of motivation, blunted affect, and restricted speech contribute significantly to low function levels, long-term disability, and increased caregiver burden, said Dr Henry A. Nasrallah, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, & Neuroscience, Director, Neuropsychiatry and Schizophrenia Programs, at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. There are no FDA-approved treatments indicated for the treatment of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and there remains a serious and significant unmet need.

Pimavanserin (Nuplazid), an atypical antipsychotic, is currently approved for the treatment of hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson disease (PD) psychosis.

For more information visit acadia-pharm.com.

Read the original post:
Pimavanserin Improves Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia in Trial - MPR - Monthly Prescribing Reference

Kier has been successfully reappointed to the Network Services Alliance (NSA) Framework by South West Water.

The framework, which is part of AMP7 will begin in April 2020 for an initial three-year period with the potential for a five-year extension.

The contract will see Kier continue to deliver both planned and 24/7 reactive services including mains network repair and maintenance, metering, new connections and developer services to 1.8 million customers across the South West. A new scope of works for AMP7 will now also include wastewater reactive network and developer services into the contract.

Barry McNicholas, group managing director at Kier Utilities and Rail, said: Its testament to our long-standing relationship with South West Water that we have been awarded these ongoing AMP7 works.Delivering quality services for 1.8 million customers in the South West has been our focus for over 25 years and we are looking forward to continuing to ensure this vital infrastructure is maintained to the same high standard and working in collaboration with South West Water to offer an industry leading experience for its customers.Iain Vosper, South West Waters operations director drinking water services, said: The Network Services Alliance (NSA) contract is our most significant operational contract between 2020 and 2025. The NSA contract has been a key strategic contract for SWW that has been successful in delivering network distribution, metering and new connection activity since 2016/17 for both South West Water and Bournemouth Water regions. The collaborative approach the business took to the tender process has resulted in the inclusion of similar activities across the water, wastewater and engineering directorates to target greater efficiencies in activities previously undertaken under separate contracts.

This is an exciting time for South West Water and Kier, as we have both accepted stretching and challenging performance metrics, delivering industry-leading service to our customers.

The scope of work includes:

Go here to read the rest:
Kier reappointed to NSA Framework - WWTonline

With several tweets Friday morning, John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, teased a "backstory" to his suspicious and unexplained two-month absence from Twitter and alleged his account was "suppressed unfairly" by the White House.

"Glad to be back on Twitter after more than two months," said Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. for former President George W. Bush and has been repeatedly referred to over the last several weeks as a possible key witness to events important to the House impeachment hearings.

"For the backstory, stay tuned ..." he cryptically offered.

Fox News noted that the tweets appeared amid President Trump's wide-ranging interview on "Fox & Friends" Friday morning, and that, during the interview, Trump was asked if he was involved in freezing Bolton's account.

"No, of course not," Trump said. "I had a good relationship with John."

Then Bolton tweeted again, this time alleging that his account was "suppressed unfairly in the aftermath of [his] resignation as National Security Advisor."

Bolton, as if in response, tweeted again Friday afternoon, claiming it was in fact "the White House" that "refused to return access to [his] personal Twitter account" after he resigned.

"Out of fear of what I may say?" Bolton asked, before adding, "To those who speculated I went into hiding, I'm sorry to disappoint!"

Bolton resigned from his post as national security adviser in September, claiming he was uncomfortable defending the president's foreign policy and national security decisions.

Since then, it has been alleged that Bolton was upset over Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani's involvement in the Ukraine investigation, claiming Giuliani was conducting a "rouge operation" along with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

"I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up," Fiona Hill, the former senior Russia and Europe adviser at the White House, recalled Bolton telling her.

Hill testified in her closed-door testimony with House impeachment investigators that Bolton called Giuliani "a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up."

Bolton was so wary he allegedly told Hill to alert National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg about the operation.

Later, a story broke that Bolton's personal attorney teased in a letter to Congress that his client had "many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed" in the impeachment probe, though, so far, Bolton has declined to voluntarily testify.

Democrats, likely interested in his testimony, have yet to subpoena him, and it is rumored that Bolton would challenge it in court if her were to be subpoenaed.

While there is justified speculation that Bolton's hiatus and now return to Twitter is linked to the impeachment probe, Axios says it's worth noting that Bolton has a forthcoming book about his time in the Trump White House.

See the rest here:
Former Trump NSA John Bolton teases a 'backstory,' claims the White House 'suppressed' his Twitter account: 'Out of fear of what I may say?' -...