Morning Security Brief: NYC Subway Security Cameras, Undercover Agent, Bolstering Subway Security, Malware, & Chili Peppers

♦ A fatal stabbing inside the New York City subway system on Sunday uncovered another problem: security camera coverage isn't what it should be. In that incident, there was simply no security camera, reports the Associated Press, but throughout the system, approximately half of the system's 4,313 security cameras don't work. "A lot of those cameras don't work, and maybe someday we're going to get very badly hurt because of it," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

♦ The FBI raid that took down a Christian militia preparing to attack law enforcement officers in Michigan was helped along by an undercover FBI agent and a cooperating witness, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. "A government filing in the case indicates an undercover FBI agent as well as an unidentified cooperating witness helped provide intelligence to a federal grand jury about at least one of the alleged members of the group -- Thomas Piatek, who delivers steel drums for a South Side company," the paper reports. The FBI would neither confirm nor deny that an undercover agent led to arrests of the Hutaree militia.

♦ In the aftermath of the Moscow subway bombing, The Christian Science Monitor provides five ways to make subways more prepared for terrorism. One idea is chemical, biological, and nuclear resistant blankets made from Demron. "The shields and vests would be used by first responders," CSM reports. "Blankets would be thrown over radiation victims to keep them from irradiating others. Another blanket – the “Hi-Energy Nuclear Suppression Blanket” – is designed to be placed over a dirty bomb about to go off. It traps chemical, biological, and nuclear agents and reduces by more than half the distance they can spread."

♦ Google says malware has been used to spy on Vietnamese opponents of bauxite mining, BBC.com reports. "[The malware] installed itself when users downloaded the software needed to type Vietnamese characters," a Google security expert told the BBC. "The infected computers were then used to spy on the users or to block other sites 'containing messages of political dissent.'"

♦ The Indian military has a new counterterrorism tool in its arsenal: the world's hottest chili pepper. Just a dab will apparently make an average person beg for water. "That potency is just why the Indian military said last week that it would use the bhut jolokia, or "ghost chili,” which holds the Guinness World Record for hottest spice, to make tear gas hand grenades in the fight against terrorism," reports The Christian Science Monitor.  "The nontoxic weapon can be used to choke terrorists or force them out of their hideouts, defense officials explained."