January 27, 2003 Companies Recovering Well After Computer Worm Attack Security experts say the problem is largely under control. The FBI has no suspects. Companies cleaned up their computer systems Sunday after a fast-spreading worm shut down Web servers in an attack that slowed the Internet for users around the world. South Korea, which has a large Internet population, was believed to be hit the hardest in the attack, which began early Saturday, spreading through network connections rather than e-mail as many viruses do. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-worm27jan27,0,6340879.story http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/5038776.htm http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/5040407.htm http://www.msnbc.com/news/864184.asp http://www.vnunet.com/News/1138271 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-27-worm_x.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/737353p-5370132c.html http://online.securityfocus.com/news/2165 Slammer 'could have originated from Asia' http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2129377,00.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2129343,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982167.html http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/01/27/worm.why/index.html Setbacks in search for worm author http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982284.html Virus Overwhelms Global Internet Systems http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INTERNET_ATTACK http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/01/25/internet.attack/index.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/734438p-5353682c.html Computer worm slows global Net traffic http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982131.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41673-2003Jan25.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/864184.asp Slammer worm spreads venom http://zdnet.com.com/2251-1110-982181.html http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57412,00.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20574.html Internet Worm Hits Airline, Banks http://online.securityfocus.com/news/2167 http://online.securityfocus.com/news/2164 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46928-2003Jan26.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/29040.html UK sites hit by SQL worm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2129363,00.html Indiana Web site slammed by virus http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20995-1.html Latest computer worm exposes reactionary nature to security flaws http://online.securityfocus.com/news/2150 Worm exposes flaws and apathy http://news.com.com/2009-1001-982203.html Microsoft fails Slammer's security test http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982305.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982135.html Always Be Prepared http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49169-2003Jan27.html - - - - - - - - Government largely spared in latest cyberattack The federal government appears to have escaped largely unscathed from one of the most virulent computer worms ever seen. On Saturday, the worm (a breed of computer virus) dubbed Slammer or Sapphire by some analysts, began infecting Microsoft database software with a well-known hole that makes it vulnerable to infection. Slammer infected at least 100,000 computer servers in the U.S., Europe and Asia and perhaps as many as 250,000, according to some estimates. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0103/012703h1.htm - - - - - - - - Child porn list leaked to Sunday Times The Sunday Times has obtained Operation Ore's entire list of UK subscribers to child porn sites. Containing 7,272 names, the list includes 'at least 20 senior executives' and a 'senior teacher at an exclusive girl's public school, services personnel from at least five military bases, GPs, university academics and civil servants." There's more: a "famous newspaper columnist is named, along with a song writer for a legendary pop band and a member of another chart- topping 1980s cult pop group, along with an official with the Church of England." http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29043.html - - - - - - - - Ex-UNR instructor changes plea in sex case A former university instructor charged under a new Nevada law that makes it illegal to use a computer to lure children for sex changed his plea Friday to no contest. Anthony Joseph Cotterall, who is out on $10,000 bail, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on the single felony count. Washoe District Judge Steven R. Kosach set March 26 for sentencing. http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/01/24/32826.php - - - - - - - - Iqaluit resident charged in child porn investigation Two-year probe nets 2,000 suspects across Canada. At least one Iqaluit resident has been charged in connection with Operation Snowball, an international child pornography crackdown, said a representative of the Major Crime Unit at the RCMP's V Division in Iqaluit. The resident was charged with possession of child pornography within the last year, said acting Cpl. Steve Kielt. The arrest followed a territorial-wide probe, but Kielt declined to release the person's name. The matter is currently before the courts. http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/30124_03.html - - - - - - - - KIDDIE PORN POLICEMAN IS SENT TO JAIL A pervert policeman, who was living in Exeter, has been jailed for six months for downloading child pornography from the internet. PC Robert Smith is the second officer from Devon to be caught in an international operation to flush out suspected paedophiles. Smith, who was working for New Scotland Yard at the time of his arrest, admitted making indecent photographs of young girls. The 45-year-old father of two was found to have a number of sickening stills of youngsters at his Surrey home. http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=99926&command=displayContent&sourceNode=99835&contentPK=3835388 - - - - - - - - Ex-Fremont councilman faces child-porn charge Federal officials yesterday filed a bill of information against a former Fremont city councilman who's accused of possessing child pornography. U.S. attorneys in Toledo said Kenneth Schneider faces up to five years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine if convicted of the charge. Mr. Schneider, 41, was accused last fall by Customs agents of using his credit cards to look at child pornography on the Internet. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030125&Category=NEWS17&ArtNo=101250096 - - - - - - - - Blanket hack muffles RIAA site--again Hackers have once again disabled the Web site of the Recording Industry Association of America, a group of record labels that is leading the charge in the crackdown on online music piracy. The attack, which began Friday, has caused the site to be unavailable for three days, an RIAA representative confirmed Monday. It follows several other malicious attacks on the site last summer. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-982274.html - - - - - - - - Attacks Fell an Online Community After battling eviction for more than two years, a massive online community has finally been driven from its virtual home. DALnet, one of the largest Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, networks and long the victim of torment by hackers, has finally succumbed to a series of denial-of-service attacks that began in August. "We have had attacks before," said Emma Monks, a member of DALnet's exploits prevention team, "but they haven't been anything like what we're experiencing now." http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57392,00.html - - - - - - - - Logjam blocks HK child porn laws Authorities in the U.S. and U.K. say they are closing the net on online pedophiles, but the crackdown stops at China's borders where a legal bind is making child porn permissible. Perpetrators are walking free since neither mainland China nor Hong Kong have laws against downloading child pornography. http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/01/27/china.childporn/index.html - - - - - - - - Child porn hysteria targets the innocent and ignores the victims AMID all the hype of the court cases surrounding Operation Amethyst, there has been a lot talk about the horror of the abuse of children. But the children have been forgotten in the orgy of invective directed against those people who have supposedly exploited those unfortunate children by purchasing photographs of their abuse. Operation Amethyst had it roots in the United States in early 1999 when a postal inspector in St Paul, Minnesota, came across a website advertising child pornography. http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/opinion/Full_Story/did-sg1uL6H6boEbo.asp - - - - - - - - Online Kid Porn a Tricky Problem The recent arrests of The Who's Pete Townshend and Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman) on child pornography charges spotlight complex issues in which the Internet is increasingly a major player. The overwhelmingly vast majority of us consider child porn utterly disgusting. But as uncomfortable as it may make us, it's wise for us in an Internet world to consider carefully whether everyone who has contact with such materials should be painted with the same broad brush. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57397,00.html - - - - - - - - Bill aims to thwart identity thieves Ever get a little annoyed when the clerk at the hardware store asks for your Social Security number to process your purchase? Or when your check won't be accepted without your Social Security number written on it? Or when your Social Security number is used for every identifying marker in your life? As the debate over whether to issue national identification numbers heats up, three senators want to protect Americans' Social Security numbers from being abused. Today, they introduced the Social Security Number Misuse Prevention Act to make it harder for potential identity thieves to obtain Social Security numbers by restricting public access to the numbers. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0127/web-ident-01-27-03.asp - - - - - - - - Both Parties Wary of Data Mining Congress wants total information on the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness research project, the goal of which is to develop a way to scour databases of American citizens' purchases, travels and other activities to pinpoint potential terrorist threats. Late Thursday, the Senate passed a $390 billion spending bill that included a bipartisan amendment requiring the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the CIA to make a full report on the program to Congress within 60 days -- or have its funding cut off. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,57404,00.html - - - - - - - - Homeland Security acts to shield its data If you work at or for the Homeland Security Department, youre under strict rules to keep data under wraps. The department today issued three regulations that take effect immediately to prevent release of information it deems sensitive. The department issued the interim final rules without the normal comment period because, as the documents signed by secretary Tom Ridge said, typical notice and comment procedures were impracticable, unnecessary and contrary to the public interest. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20997-1.html - - - - - - - - Commerce sets infosec policy The Commerce Department chief information officer last week issued the first departmentwide information technology security policy that sets comprehensive ground rules for protecting and accessing the department's systems. The policy explains the department's IT security program requirements and provides guidance on the implementation of IT security programs within Commerce. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0127/web-comm-01-27-03.asp - - - - - - - - Government promises safer school surfing Review of web filtering, monitoring and detection software to restrict access to inappropriate sites The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is ramping up its action to encourage safe internet use by schoolchildren, and help school IT managers make informed decisions about web safety strategy. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1138252 High-tech monitoring law concerns librarians http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-27-library-monitoring_x.htm - - - - - - - - Virus Forecast for 2003 Experts warn of multitasking megaworms, virus spies, cloaked nasties and some targeting Linux, Unix. He's been a virus writer for seven years. He goes by the handle Melhacker and may have been responsible for the recent outbreak of the Bugbear worm, the second most prevalent worm on the Internet last year. He recently claimed to be working on a new virus, Scezda, that represents a new type of threat. Scezda, as Melhacker described it, would fall into an emerging category of megaworms that combine features from some of this year's most prolific worms and viruses, including Sircam, Klez, and Nimda. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,108961,00.asp - - - - - - - - Beware new Nigerian Bush spam scam An unusual twist on the Nigerian 419 email scam has surfaced. So if you receive one of the following in your inbox, on no account take it seriously. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/29034.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft Data Protection Register entry expires Thanks go to our chums at NTK.NET, for spotting that Microsoft Limited's entry in the Data Protection Register expired on January 8. This means that Microsoft Ltd. has to submit an entirely new application. In the meantime, the company is, under UK law, illegally holding personal data. In theory, the Data Protection Commissioner could prosecute Microsoft for using personal information when in this expired state, NTK notes. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29036.html - - - - - - - - The Busy Life of a Welsh Virus-Writer The prison-bound author of the Gokar virus loves shoes, pole dancers and personal self- disclosure. His blog tells all. News item! Recently Simon Vallor, a convicted Welsh virus-writer, got two years in the big house for creating Gokar and a couple of other viruses. Virus-writers may notice that it's not good to be arrested in the green and pleasant land. While apprehension is rare, the British courts are tough and one can be warehoused for a respectable shift even on the rep of a relative nothing of a virus. Melissa-creator David L. Smith caused a law enforcement and media paroxysm in the U.S., but he still got less than Vallor -- twenty months. http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/138 - - - - - - - - Perspective: The new jailbird jingle If you've ever used a peer-to-peer network and swapped copyrighted files, chances are pretty good you're guilty of a federal felony. It doesn't matter if you've forsworn Napster, uninstalled Kazaa and now are eagerly padding the record industry's bottom line by snapping up $15.99 CDs by the cartload. Be warned -- you're what prosecutors like to think of as an unindicted federal felon. I'm not joking. A obscure law called the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act that former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed in 1997 makes peer-to-peer (P2P) pirates liable for $250,000 in fines and subject to prison terms of up to three years. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.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. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however copies may not be sold, and NewsBits (www.newsbits.net) should be cited as the source of the information. Copyright 2000-2003, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.