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Subject: [iwar] Historical posting
"Coolio" to FBI: I was only joking, G: FBI agents investigating last month's malicious Denial of Service attacks say they don't believe the teen known as "Coolio," who claimed responsibility for the hack that publicly humiliated RSA Security, is also responsible for DoS attacks that affected Yahoo and Amazon.com. "Coolio" apparently drew the scrutiny of the FBI when some of his friends started a rumor in a chat room that he was behind the attacks and he jokingly took credit for them... http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/008684.htm http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/276064l.htm http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1563463.html
E-business vs. the perfect cybercrime
U.S. authorities can't touch credit card fraud from overseas. The Internet has revolutionized commerce by allowing businesses to sell globally, but it also has created what so far appears to be the perfect cybercrime borderless credit card fraud. An investigation by MSNBC has learned that while criminals based overseas now account for up to a third of all online fraud directed at U.S. e-businesses, there is no evidence that a single one of these crooks has been prosecuted. http://www.msnbc.com/news/376973.asp
The $17 Million Scam
How two crooks tried to pull off a huge Internet bank heist -- and how they were caught. Two would-be cyberbandits, using their computer savvy for nefarious gain for the first time, thought they had pocketed $16.8 million the easy way. Instead, they ended up in a federal prison ensnared by the most basic technology: a minimum-wage bank teller called her boss. The two hapless thieves set out to steal the millions from Insurance Auto Auctions, a publicly traded company that buys, on consignment, wrecked cars from insurance companies and auctions them off on the Internet. Once a car is sold, the company's computer prints a check to a specific insurance company for its portion of the sale. http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/cybercrime/internetfraud/story/0,9955,2115471,00.html
Hacking in Russia is serious
Alexei Rayevsky understood early on how lucrative computer hacking can be. As a teen-ager, he broke into corporate networks, then confronted the companies with his exploits -- and offered his expertise for making their systems more secure. Unlike their counterparts in richer countries, most Russian hackers are not just motivated by the subversive thrill of cracking code and embarrassing corporate titans or government agencies -- they're driven by empty pockets. Sure, Russian hackers still sometimes sabotage systems for fun or political reasons, and advertise their antics on irreverent Web sites. They don't broadcast how they spend the rest of their time: making money, usually illegally, sometimes with global fallout. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/280113l.htm
Computer crime 'a problem' for police
Hong Kong police have acknowledged that they face difficulties in tackling the rise in computer crime. Figures show such cases soared from 24 in 1998 to 317 last year. But only 18 cases were solved and 48 suspects arrested in 1999. In those cases, 12 people were convicted, with seven cases still pending court proceedings. There were 238 cases of hacking, 32 involving pornography and
18 involving fraud and Internet shopping. At a Legco panel
meeting on security, Democratic Party legislator Cheung Man-kwong asked: "Do police feel helpless about computer crimes?" Chief Superintendent Lo Yik-kee admitted police faced difficulties. "The difficulty is that cyberspace is intangible and it's hard to identify offenders. All other countries are facing problems in tackling computer crimes and we have done some work on this," he said. http://www.technologyPost.com/enterprise/DAILY/20000303103909111.asp
New Pretty Park virus in the wild
A new variant of last year's "Pretty Park" virus is making the rounds, according to antivirus firm Network Associates. The Trojan horse, which arrives as an e-mail attachment named "prettypark.exe," does not delete or alter files, but it sends a copy of itself to everyone in the victim's e-mail address book every 30 minutes, which can bog down an entire network. It is spreading quickly, according to Network Associates, and has infected computers on a dozen corporate and government networks. Pretty Park first appeared last year. This new outbreak -- officially labeled "W32/Pretty.worm.unp" -- is simply that virus delivered in uncompressed form, according to Kelly Shall, spokeswoman for Network Associates. It was discovered in mid-February but wasn't considered a serious risk at that time, Shall said. In recent days, though, infection rates have been surprisingly high. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2455265,00.html http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/000303F336
Clinton, in S.J., to push steps for secure Internet President Clinton will address a Silicon Valley technology forum today in San Jose on his agenda for the information age, including recently announced budget initiatives to help make computers available to all Americans. The president will also announce that he's issuing an executive memorandum directing heads of federal agencies to renew their efforts to make agency computer systems secure. In particular, he wants the agencies to make sure that government computers aren't infected with the stealth software used in the series of ``distributed denial of service'' attacks that overloaded and shut down major Web sites last month. ``These Internet disruptions highlight how important computer networks have become to our daily lives, and how vulnerabilities can create risks for all -- including the federal government,'' reads the memo, according to a draft provided by Clinton aides. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/secure030300.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/144971.html
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES SUBJECT: Action by Federal Agencies to Safeguard Against Internet Attacks http://www.whitehouse.gov/library/PressReleases.cgi?date=1&briefing=3
PRESIDENT CLINTON AND VICE PRESIDENT GORE: AMERICA'S AGENDA FOR THE INFORMATION AGE http://www.whitehouse.gov/library/PressReleases.cgi?date=1&briefing=4
System funding will be tied to security, OMB says
Funding for information technology will be conditional to whether a system has adequate security measures, the Office of Management and Budget said in new guidance. "The most effective way to protect information and systems is to incorporate security into the architecture of each. This approach ensures that security supports agency business operations, thus facilitating those operations, and that plans to fund and manage security are built into lifecycle budgets for information systems," OMB Director Jacob J. Lew said. "In general, OMB will consider new or continued funding only for those system investments that satisfy [the OMB criteria] and will consider funding information technology investments only upon demonstration that existing agency systems meet these criteria," Lew said. For systems that do not meet the standards, agencies will need to work with OMB to establish a process and timetable for bringing systems into compliance, he said. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/1418-1.html
Malaysia will not curb Internet News - Deputy PM
The Malaysian government will neither curb information flow on the Internet nor introduce laws to prevent the public from getting such news, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said on Saturday. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/280145l.htm
China releases cyberdissident
A software entrepreneur, who was released six months early after being imprisoned in China's first Internet subversion case, said Friday he hopes to go back into business on the Web. Lin Hai, often branded China's first cyberdissident, said he was not sure why the government freed him on Sept. 23, instead of March 25 when his two-year sentence was due to end. `I'm not concerned about that, but it's good that they let me out, I'm only concerned about the end result,'' he said in a telephone interview from his home in Shanghai. Lin was arrested in March 1998 after giving the e-mail addresses of 30,000 Chinese computer users to ``VIP Reference,'' a pro-democracy journal published online by Chinese dissidents in the United States. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/276710l.htm
Survey: IT Managers In Denial On Hacks
The Information Technology Association of America has released a survey of IT professionals that shows 67 percent of them believe that, when it comes to denial of service attacks, their managers are in denial over the hazard. "Companies need to wake up ... With so much at stake," said Harris Miller, president of the ITAA, "it's time for law and order on the electronic frontier." The survey of 6,000 IT professionals found 59 percent of them saying the recent denial of service attacks that brought down Yahoo and other major portal and e-commerce sites were a "watershed event" illustrating the vulnerabilities of e-commerce. Sixty-seven percent said they would like to see greater leadership in countering the potential exposure to attack. http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2455290,00.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1562358.html?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.1003-200-1562358 Supercomputer maker to buy Cray, change name By Joe Wilcox and Stephen Shankland Staff Writers, CNET News.com March 2, 2000, 11:15 a.m. PT URL: http://news.cnet.com/category/0-1003-200-1562358.html Supercomputer behemoth Cray Research, acquired by SGI in 1996 and put up for sale last summer, is being bought by tiny supercomputer maker Tera Computer. Tera is betting its future on the acquisition and the combined companies' ability to take on the likes of IBM, which has recently souped up its supercomputing efforts. Tera also faces the challenge of digesting an operation significantly larger--125 employees vs. about
850 for Cray--and combating companies building supercomputers from PC
parts.
But Seattle, Wash.-based Tera also picks up valuable assets: the Cray name, three supercomputer lines and an installed base of 600 supercomputers, which translates to a total of 200 customers in 30
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