Intel Update June 22 - Wildfires, Shipping, and Cyber Events

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the graphical intelligence summary or the Intel update for June 16th through the 22nd 2024 so let's get right to it starting off with the Northeast region uh one major event of note this week and this was the 911 call center outage in Massachusetts so uh all of the 911 call center operations throughout the entire state was taken down uh due to a cyber event uh at the time there were very few details that were released to the public. However since the incident it has become uh public or at least uh the you know state law enforcement agencies who kind of run the system uh have revealed that it was due to a firewall blocking uh calls from actually making their way to the actual 911 call center so some sort some sort of software glitch now again there it's not known if there was any kind of malign actor uh that was the reason for this sort of thing uh it doesn't seem like it. However there's no information uh you know this is one of those things where there's one source and you know there's no third party authentication or verification of any of this so we just kind of have to take them uh for their word on it so uh either way uh this resulted in it seems like most of the 911 call centers throughout the state uh being offline for most of the day uh a couple of days ago. But uh some Reports say was only offline for an hour it's hard to say um all I know is that it seems this is a good reminder that uh an entire State can be on you know one shared system so we know that it is possible at least for the state of Massachusetts for the entire State's 911 system to go down so again this is just a a very strong reminder to if you have not done so already no matter where you live in the United States or really around the world take a moment go look up your local fire station your local hospital uh Center and your local police department's uh non-emergency phone numbers and write those down write them down somewhere with a pen and paper and you know just can like stick them on your fridge or something like that it's always good to have those numbers uh around just in case you have uh some of these more complex systems uh fail as they're starting to do so again just a good reminder to kind of be prepared uh for yourself moving down to the Southeast region uh there was one incident of note that was kind of strange so I thought I would mention and this was a mass shooting that occurred in Ford ice Arkansas uh it was a little strange because it's not your typical like you know mass shooting sort of thing which is usually involved some sort of criminal Behavior lately uh this was seems like uh the details of this are very few and far between either way the the details that have been made public are some guy who has been arrested his name is Travis posy went to a grocery store in Ford ice Arkansas just south of Little Rock and started shooting uh there's there are clips and images of this all all over the Internet which you can find on your own um. But three people were killed and 11 were injured uh in this shooting at a grocery store in Ford ice so I I did a little bit of digging and I tried to find out okay well you know usually these sorts of things are uh disgruntled employee or some kind of family domestic uh sort of thing I couldn't find anything on it there's just not that many details that are public. But I'm sure over the next few days we'll find out some more information uh regarding this shooting but I did want to mention it again just as another reminder that you can be in the middle of nowhere Arkansas and some small town and have some some crazy guy uh um just you know start shooting so again hard this is one of those you know unicorn events that's really hard to plan for um. However um you know it is an election year so I'll just kind of leave it at that uh moving out to the East Central midwestern region one out of a note I did want to mention and this was a a very large fire uh that consumed a pallet of manufacturer that makes you know wooden shipping pallets uh in Westtown Chicago multiple alarm fire hundreds of firefighters involved um because as you might imagine you know this is one of those things where it's like you know pallets wooden pallets are extremely famble they've got good air flow through them it's just a nightmare scenario for a fire uh so you know thankfully it's just wood at least. But how however there were local evacu uations because there's a um there I saw local reports that there was a a fertilizer manufacturer nearby so it's like oh my goodness you know when these fires start hitting industrial sectors in in major cities you know you you know that you've hit an election year so again for those in the in the industrial sector uh who work in some of these big facilities and factories please please please be careful um it seems like you know all the stars are aligning sometimes for for some of these very bad incidents to occur so it's just another constant reminder to be vigilant so uh moving down to the uh southwestern region I did want to mention this before we get to the the ghostnet reports uh I saw quite a few of you on Thursday uh over the radio over HF radio on the ghost net procedure uh plan that we've kind of come up with here I saw a lot of you talking about the uh fires uh down in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest in general so I did want to mention it I'll throw up some images of of the fire that was uh mentioned specifically by a few of you on ghostnet so uh yeah again just a constant reminder that hey you know Wildfire season things are getting out of control uh there was one in New Mexico which resulted in at least 8,000 people being evacuated from one town so you know this is a pretty pretty big deal sometimes so um again just a constant reminder to be to be on the lookout for these sorts of things um and and make sure that you uh have a plan in place in case you live in a wildfire Zone and you have to uh evacuate right uh not too many people seem to be thinking about that these days even people who who do live in some of these more high-risk areas especially considering again the the uh Wildfire loading uh fuel loading season is you know fuel loading is pretty high in some parts of the country so again something to to keep in mind and wrapping things up today I know kind of a short day. But uh one to wrap things up with the events in the Red Sea Horn of Africa region so uh again like I mentioned last week it's become clear that the merchant vessel tutor has sunk uh or at least nobody can find it anymore and commercial shipping vessels found an oil slick at its last n position so uh it is assumed to have sunk in the southern Red Sea uh I haven't put the Grid on the slide because of the grid for where um I've seen several official statements uh place that grid GD on and it's very obviously a very an incorrect grid I saw it I saw one grid which placed uh the breakage on land uh so you know that's not obviously true so I'm working on nailing down the more specific Geo uh Geographic coordinates of where it sank uh and I'm also trying to find where the verbina is uh because that ship also was last we heard a few days ago last week I think is it was struck as well and it was sinking and the crew had abandon ship so we do know that that happened we do know that the C Abandoned Ship. But we don't know where it is don't at least I haven't been able to track it down with any you know certain accuracy the grids I have are huge you know they're not really helpful for pinpointing where the vessel is it's just like well it's in the western Gulf of Aiden okay cool um. But in any case I didn't want to mention the uh attack that occurred on the merchant vessel tutor again there are much better and more qualified people to talk about Maritime issues like this than myself. However I didn't want to mention it because it's kind of interesting the houthis are adapting uh they're definitely adapting to American targeting and the they used an unmanned surface vessel basically a remote control boat uh to take out the merchant vessel tutor and it wasn't the ones that you would have expected so uh the houthis have created basically a remote control version of uh some of the Narco Subs that you may be familiar with um I think the one that they're most famous for is uh the Blowfish or the blow fin I can't quite remember the exact name I think it's a blowfish uh USV and it is very reminiscent of what the Iranians use um because obviously the you know houthis are getting a lot of influence from from Iran uh. However they didn't use that this time so they have a purpose-built weapon designed to take out commercial shipping or warships as well but they didn't use it they pulled a little sneaky and they took a normal fishing fishing boat put some mannequins on it to make it it looked like they were just fishermen on board then they drove it all the way to the merchant vessel tutor and this uh image uh that you can see here was taken by the crew of the tutor uh wondering why this vessel is getting close to their ship uh right before it detonated uh in the stern portion of the ship so this is kind of a unique thing isn't it uh where the houthis have a dedicated system. But they're not using it because uh they figured out that the Navy can the US Navy can uh take it out very easily uh and and uh you know Monitor and all that kind of stuff so they're using an older solution to kind of sneak out there amongst the normal uh legitimate fishing vessels and hopefully uh confuse uh a merchant vessel crew so again I'm sure there are a lots of very very very expensive memos being sent out to all the crews and uh shipping companies in the in the region uh because of this uh. But again it's just one of those things which kind of shows you that um you know the houthis in particular but also any really you know Insurgent or warlord type group around the world is very very good at adapting to their circumstances so uh it turns out that this you know older Tech solution is quite effective so again I think I'll uh I think I'll leave it there for today you know I'm sorry this is a little bit shorter than normal. But um it has been a very busy week as we can all clearly see from all the other wire reports I've put out throughout the week. However there's really not a whole lot that I can comment on uh not a whole lot uh where um I can add you know decently um helpful thoughts really it's just kind of a a more news oriented weekend L analysis than than normal so yeah I think I'll call it a day and uh we'll get back at it uh next week and we'll see uh how these things work out I hope we can find more information about the verbina and see where it actually is uh because you know the Red Sea is is definitely heating up uh especially considering the the events that are going on in the rest of the Middle East so uh that's pretty much all I have uh for now so thank you all for watching and we will. See you next time and as always fight in the shade.