January 29, 2002 Former Los Alamos computer whiz freed with tight restrictions A former Los Alamos National Laboratory computer specialist accused of hacking was freed on $50,000 bond Tuesday and ordered to stay away from computers and several other electronic devices. Jerome Heckenkamp, 22, was charged last year in federal courts in San Jose and San Diego with breaking into the networks of eBay, Exodus Communications, Qualcomm, Juniper Networks, ETrade, Lycos and Cygnus Support Solutions, causing more than $1 million in damage. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/040681.htm http://www.securityfocus.com/news/318 http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/232587p-2233872c.html - - - - - - - - Moscow firm seeks dismissal of U.S. copyright suit The attorney for a Russian company accused of violating a controversial U.S. copyright law filed motions on Monday to have the case dismissed, arguing the law is vague, too broad and shouldn't apply to a foreign company. ElcomSoft Co faces charges of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by selling and conspiring to sell a program that lets people using Adobe Systems Inc's eBook Reader to copy and print digital books, transfer them to other computers and have them read aloud by the computer. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/070843.htm http://www.techtv.com/news/politicsandlaw/story/0,24195,3369993,00.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2103310,00.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174045.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/01/29/elcomsoft.reut/index.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23874.html - - - - - - - - Washtech.com Web Site Hacked Computer hackers attacked the Web site Washtech.com yesterday evening, replacing content on the news site's home page with taunts to the site's administrators and greetings to fellow hackers. The attack occurred around 6 p.m., and the bogus content on the home page was visible for about 20 minutes before administrators could shut the site down. As of last night, officials at Washtech, a Web site for technology news that operates alongside washingtonpost.com, did not know how the attack was conducted or when the Web site would be back online. At about 8:20 p.m., the main page of Washtech was rudimentarily rebuilt with a few headlines and links. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51403-2002Jan28.html - - - - - - - - 'MyParty' worm goes global The public's short memory about warnings not to click on email attachments may be to blame for the continuing spread of the MyParty worm. An email attachment that poses as a Web link but is actually a mass-mailing computer worm spread slowly over the weekend, but it managed to infect systems in more than 50 countries. Known within the antivirus industry as W32.MyParty@MM or W32/MyParty-A, the worm appears to be a link to a Web site, www.myparty.yahoo.com -- which doesn't actually exist. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2103304,00.html http://www.internetweek.com/story/INW20020128S0003 Newest virus looks like Internet link http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/01/29/ebrief.htm - - - - - - - - Passport flaw diverts Hotmail users Microsoft's online gaming site suffered another glitch in its switch to the Passport identification system, logging subscribers on to a bogus Hotmail e-mail account Monday. A Microsoft representative said Tuesday that the glitch affected those who tried to access their Hotmail account via links on The Zone, the game portion of Microsoft's MSN online service. Instead of being taken to their own account, people were sent to a test account for "customer!@hotmail.com." http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-825679.html - - - - - - - - Euro fear may mask a real issue - fraud Euro migration is being touted as the new Y2K with fraud thrown in for interest, and could cost companies fives times as much as the millenium bug, according to analysts. A raft of hype about euro conversion problems may blind them to real problems during the transition, especially fraud. Complicated conversions, where new processes are installed and errors may occur, will provide opportunities for fraudulent staff to divert money, say software vendors. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2103340,00.html - - - - - - - - Justice Dept. To Hire More Computer Crime Attorneys The U.S. Justice Department has begun soliciting hundreds of resumes from attorneys skilled in computer crime and intellectual property law in an effort to keep pace with a growing caseload of cybercrime prosecutions. The Justice Department "is seeking experienced attorneys to fill positions in its Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section," the agency said in a notice recently posted on its Web site. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174007.html http://www.cybercrime.gov/March2002.htm - - - - - - - - Senator Introduces Two New Bills To Fight Cybercrime Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., on Monday introduced a pair of bills that would increase funding and training to help fight computer crime and cyberterrorism. When it comes to the threat of a sophisticated, coordinated cyberterrorist attack, the question most likely is not whether such an attack will come. The question is when," Edwards said Monday in support of his bills. "So we must be prepared to fight against a cyber-jihad, and we must be prepared to win. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174030.html http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=632908 http://www.securityfocus.com/news/317 - - - - - - - - Lawmakers Resurrect Call For Net Gambling Ban House lawmakers today testified to a Senate committee on the need for an Internet gambling ban as a way to seal off terrorist money-laundering routes. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that Internet gambling and credit card fraud remain two of the top methods that terrorist supporters use to hide the money trail for underwriting their criminal efforts. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174035.html - - - - - - - - Pentagon has long-term plans to boost tech spending The official in charge of the Pentagon's finances said Monday that a proposal to increase high-tech spending in the next defense budget is the first step in a long term plan to incorporate more technology into all branches of the military. Dov Zakheim, under secretary of defense and chief financial officer for the Pentagon, said the military's long-term goal is to increase science and technology spending from 2 1/2 to 3 percent of a defense budget that may grow next year to more than $375 billion -- an increase that would mean billions of extra dollars for high-tech goodies. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/defen012902.htm - - - - - - - - Army taps Signal for tech services The Army has hired Signal Corp. to provide knowledge management and technical support to the Office of the Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, Communications and Computers. Under the seven-year, $25 million task order, the Fairfax, Va., company will design and maintain systems to help the Army with its knowledge management strategy. One goal is to integrate knowledge management and best business practices into Army processes, service officials said. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/17843-1.html - - - - - - - - 'Make Linus's life easier' say hackers Linux kernel hackers this week appealed for the appointment of a 'penguin patch lieutenant' to deal with the glaring shortcomings in Linus Torvalds's kernel patch system and generally "make Linus's life easier". In a request for comments posted to the Linux kernel mailing list yesterday, kernel hacker Rob Landley slammed the current state of the Linux kernel patching system as "ridiculous" and called for the appointment of a penguin patch master. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128745 - - - - - - - - Privacy group asks states to examine Microsoft service A privacy group Tuesday asked state law enforcement authorities to examine software giant Microsoft Corp.'s Passport online identity service, saying it exposes consumers to fraud, junk electronic mail and identity theft. The Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to all 50 state attorneys general, asking them to protect consumers against what it called Microsoft's unfair and deceptive trade practices because the federal government has failed to act. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/081878.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-825340.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/01/29/microsoft.reut/index.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/01/29/passport-privacy.htm - - - - - - - - Security-conscious groups ban Wi-Fi Wi-Fi, a wireless technology touted by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as one of the greatest tech innovations in five years, is being banned from some high-tech institutions because of security concerns. This month, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California banned all wireless networks, including the most prevalent, Wi-Fi, from its grounds due to "security vulnerabilities," directors said in a newsletter. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/01/29/wifi.htm http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16053.html - - - - - - - - Intrusion Software Maker Snorts At Security Alert The developer of Snort, a popular open-source intrusion detection system (IDS), downplayed reports of a security flaw that could enable attackers to disable the software. According to an alert released Monday by Internet Security Systems (ISS), Snort versions 1.8.3 and earlier are susceptible to a denial of service attack. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174038.html - - - - - - - - Micromuse extends to security management The leading player in network fault management is applying its expertise to a system that sifts real dangers from security alerts Micromuse has launched a console that manages alerts from different security devices at the ComNet networking exhibition in Washington. Netcool for Security Management is based on Micromuse's Netcool OMNIbus fault-management platform, but monitors alerts from virtual private networks, firewalls, antivirus programs, authentication mechanisms, intrusion detection systems and environmental and physical security applications. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2103290,00.html - - - - - - - - RIPTECH RELEASES GROUNDBREAKING INTERNET SECURITY THREAT REPORT Riptech, Inc., the premier provider of scalable, real-time managed security services, today released the Internet Security Threat Report, the first report to present cyber attack trends based on the empirical analysis of actual cyber attacks detected against a global sample of security devices. The sample set from which the attack trends in this report were derived consists of more than 300 companies in more than 25 countries throughout the world. Combined, the security devices of these organizations protect more than one million Internet-connected hosts. http://www.riptech.com/newsevents/release020127.html - - - - - - - - Home Is Where the Hacker Is Many well-known security vulnerabilities remain open on home machines and networks, and there is less risk to hackers of getting caught. Thanks to advancing technology and the growth of high-speed Internet service, home computer systems have become faster and more powerful. But they remain a favorite target of hackers and virus writers who are looking for easy prey with less fear of prosecution. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16035.html - - - - - - - - Exploring the Ethics of Hacking Some hackers want to do good by exposing security holes, but are they doing damage by going public? Billions of dollars will be spent on computer security this year, and with good reason: In 2001, computer security incidents and vulnerabilities increased 200 percent, according to the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University. But how can security holes be plugged? Hackers say sometimes even trying to fix problems raises a whole slew of ethical questions. Some hackers and security experts who discover vulnerabilities actually want to do good. http://www.techtv.com/news/security/story/0,24195,3369909,00.html *********************************************************** Search the NewsBits.net Archive at: http://www.newsbits.net/search.html *********************************************************** The source material may be copyrighted and all rights are retained by the original author/publisher. The information is provided to you for non-profit research and educational purposes. 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