Archive for Crime
Author: Dave Lewis
May 15, 2008 at 8:39 am · Filed under Crime, Hacker, Legal Aspects
Marcia Savage has a nice write up on the Dave & Busters data breach.
From Search Security:
Three men were indicted on charges of hacking into computer systems at 11 Dave & Buster’s restaurants and stealing credit and debit card numbers.
The 27-count federal indictment unsealed Monday in New York charges Maksym Yastremskiy of Kharkov, Ukraine, and Aleksandr Suvorov of Estonia with wire fraud, computer fraud, aggravated identity theft, and other crimes in connection with the scam, which occurred last year. Turkish officials arrested Yastremskiy last July and German authorities arrested Suvorov in March. The third suspect, Albert Gonzalez of Miami, was arrested this month on one count of wire fraud conspiracy.
The indictment alleges that the trio schemed to break into cash register terminals at various locations of the Dallas-based restaurant chain between April 30 and Sept. 22, 2007. They are accused of stealing credit and debit card Track 2 magnetic stripe data and selling it to others who used it to make fraudulent purchases. Track 2 data includes the customer’s account number, expiration data and security code.
Read on.
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Author: Dave Lewis
May 13, 2008 at 6:28 am · Filed under Crime, Data Security
Ah Chile. Beautiful landscapes. Great wines. And apparently, some jackass that thought it would be fun to publish the personal information for 6 million folks on the web.
From AFP via Yahoo News:
“Its a serious matter and we’re investigating,” Police Cibercrime Brigade chief Jaime Jara told the newspaper.
The data was displayed for several hours before authorities removed it on the technology information website “FayerWayer” and community website “ElAntro.”
The hacker said on the websites he splashed the data “for the whole world to see … (to) show how unprotected personal data is in Chile … nobody bothers protecting that information.”
Uh boy. This is not a good way to demonstrate a security hole. Sure it grabs the headlines but,…
Never mind.
I’m just going to sip my coffee.
Chilean in fact.
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Author: Dave Lewis
May 8, 2008 at 10:19 am · Filed under Crime, Data Security
Ouch!
From vnunet:
An audit at the US State Department has revealed the loss of over 1,000 laptops, some of which held security information.
Around $30m worth of computing hardware is “unaccounted for”, the bulk of it laptops. These include over 400 from the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, some containing security material.
Nita M. Lowey, a representative on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department operations, told Congressional Quarterly that she is “concerned” about the security revelations.
Sigh.
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Author: Dave Lewis
May 7, 2008 at 10:46 am · Filed under Crime, ID Theft
Ok, I am sufficiently absent minded. I read this piece yesterday but, I forgot to share it. It turns out that the folks over at Finjan have discovered a server loaded with stolen personal information. Apparently it was housing 1.4GB worth of purloined info. They have dubbed it a “crimeserver”.
How cute.
From Reuters:
A Web security firm said on Tuesday it had tipped off international banks and police after finding a huge trove of stolen business and personal data amassed on a server in the space of just three weeks.
Finjan Inc said it had notified the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, police in various countries and more than 40 financial institutions in the United States, Europe and India about the discovery of the so-called “crimeserver”.
“This server was running for about three weeks and within this period it managed to collect 1.4 gigabytes of data. It is indeed the largest treasure we’ve found in this very short time,” Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of the California-based firm, said in a phone interview from Israel.
The stolen data consisted of 5,388 unique log files including 1,037 from Turkey, 621 from Germany, 571 from the United States, 322 from France, 308 from India and 232 from Britain.
Glad to see that they were able to find and shut down this nuisance. Congrats to the folks at Finjan.
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Author: Dave Lewis
May 6, 2008 at 11:19 am · Filed under Crime, Hacker
OK, so it didn’t go down quite like that.
German police announced today that they have busted a hacker ring from the Hamburg area.
From The Local, Germany:
Bavarian authorities have broken up a hacker ring based around a 33,000-member internet forum called ‘hacksector,’ police announced on Tuesday.
Eleven suspects ranging in age from 15 to 22 years old have been taken into custody, along with more than 20 laptop computers, Augsburg police spokesman Manfred Gottschalk told The Local. Seven of the suspects are younger than 18 years old.
“We are at the beginning of our investigation,” Gottschalk said.
It seems that the group is accused of carding, ID theft and various hacking offenses. I wonder if the recent anti-hacking laws will be applied in the case.
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Author: Dave Lewis
May 6, 2008 at 7:32 am · Filed under Crime
[UPDATE]: Pedophile captured! (Thurs. May 8th)
Wayne Nelson Corliss, 57, was arrested at his apartment in Union City, New Jersey, about midnight Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Interpol said in a written statement.
—–
Interpol has sent out a request for help this morning and we’re only too happy to pass the word along.
From INTERPOL:
INTERPOL is asking for the public’s help in identifying a man pictured sexually abusing children in a series of images found on the Internet and retrieved from the computer of a convicted paedophile.
The man, whose name, nationality and location are unknown is featured in approximately 100 images in a series of around 800, which are believed to have been taken in Southeast Asia and depict the sexual abuse of at least three boys aged between six and 10 years old. The first pictures of the man were originally discovered by police in Norway in March 2006.
“The law enforcement community around the world has done all it can to find this man who clearly presents a danger to young children, and we are now asking the public to help identify this predator and protect other potential victims from abuse,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.
“When we made a similar appeal last year, it was information provided by the public which helped identify and locate Christopher Paul NEIL, who is now in jail facing child abuse charges. We hope that people around the world will again play a vital role in tracing this man who could otherwise continue to sexually abuse young children.”
If you have ANY information on who this jackhole might be please contact your local police department who can refer to INTERPOL.
Pass it on.
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Author: Dave Lewis
April 29, 2008 at 7:35 am · Filed under Crime, Malware
Microsoft releases botnet hunting tool to law enforcement.
From Network World:
Botnet fighters have another tool in their arsenal, thanks to Microsoft.
The software vendor is giving law enforcers access to a special tool that keeps tabs on botnets, using data compiled from the 450 million computer users who have installed the Malicious Software Removal tool that ships with Windows.
Although Microsoft is reluctant to give out details on its botnet buster — the company said that even revealing its name could give cyber criminals a clue on how to thwart it — company executives discussed it at a closed door conference held for law enforcement professionals Monday. The tool includes data and software that helps law enforcers get a better picture of the data being provided by Microsoft’s users, said Tim Cranton, associate general counsel with Microsoft’s World Wide Internet Safety Programs. “I think of it … as botnet intelligence,” he said.
Read on for the full article.
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Author: Dave Lewis
April 10, 2008 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Crime, Hacker
There is a growing trend in the “echo” generation. They’re knee deep in the social networking world without a care for consequences of hacking. It’s amazing how many times I see the MySpace denizens act as if they have some sort of anonymity. News flash folks, you don’t.
From CNET:
On Thursday morning, at this year’s RSA conference in San Francisco, Chris Boyd of Facetime and I will present a talk “How to Adapt to the Echo Generation’s Social Media Hacking Game.” The following is a preview of that talk, presented in three parts. On Tuesday we learned who the Echo Generation are. Wednesday we saw how they use online social media for hacks. Today, we’ll see how Chris uses features of social networks and Web 2.0 to shut these kids down.
Known as the Sherlock Holmes of France, famed criminologist Edmond Locard once said that every contact between two items leaves a trace, and that’s also true when talking about online crimes. IP addresses are left behind with every site we visit. Posts to newsgroups remain accessible via Google long after the initial discussion has ceased to have relevance. And there’s also that embarrassing MySpace page that was started but abandoned years ago that’s still active. So when a person suddenly decides to commit an online crime, all that prior online history follows them, and that’s a good thing for Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Security Labs.
Have a read of the full piece by Robert Vamosi. A very interesting article.
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Tags: Social Media, Social Media Hacker, Online Crime
Author: Dave Lewis
March 31, 2008 at 8:40 am · Filed under Crime, Hacker, ID Theft
This morning brings word of another data breach. This time the victim was the Irish employment site Jobs.ie.
From Ireland.com:
Jobs.ie would not say how many of its clients had been affected, but said it had now fixed the security breach.
The clients whose information was taken are at risk from identity fraud and “phishing”, where criminals, often posing as a well-known, legitimate company, use the information gleaned to try to extract further personal and financial information from their victims.
It is understood that the hackers used an illegally obtained log-in and password given to employers who are registered with Jobs.ie to access the job applications area of the site. They then downloaded personal information from CVs submitted, along with job applications.
Most of the stolen information relates to archive CVs rather than those of people now looking for jobs.
The company, which is owned by businessman Denis O’Brien, has in recent days contacted those affected to warn them of the possibility that they may receive e-mails from people using their information.
“All of the people affected have been contacted and informed of the situation. We have urged them to exercise extra vigilance with inbound e-mails in the coming weeks to ensure online security,” a spokeswoman said.
Read on.
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Author: Dave Lewis
March 20, 2008 at 7:44 am · Filed under Crime, Legal Aspects
I still loath that “cyber” word. Anyway, this is an interesting article that comes on the heels of one a couple weeks ago wherein the Australian police made it known that they want the ability to track computer crime suspects wherever they might be.
An group of international cyber cops is ramping up plans to fight online crime across borders.
The unit, known as the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group, met this month in London and is made up of high-level online law enforcement representatives from the FBI, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. One of the main goals of the group, which was founded in 2006, is to fight cyber crime in a common way by sharing intelligence, swapping tools and best practices, and strengthening and synchronizing their respective laws.
And it has its work cut out for it.
The Government Accountability Office last year said there is concern about threats that nation-states and terrorists pose to our national security through attacks on US computer-reliant critical infrastructures and theft of our sensitive information.
Read on.
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