NewsBits for October 10, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ A Young Hacker Buys Options, Borrowing an Investor's Identity A Pennsylvania youth has been accused of a complex scheme to unload worthless stock options by hacking into another investment account and using it to buy the securities from him. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/business/10HACK.html http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-hacker10oct10,1,5010582.story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3180358.stm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39117052,00.htm http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_410916,00030010.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6081-2003Oct9.html - - - - - - - - - - Virtual girlfriend 'inspired Internet attack' An attack that disabled the servers of a major US port was the result of a spat over the suspect's Internet girlfriend, say prosecutors. A UK teenager on trial for allegedly launching an Internet attack on a US port on Friday admitted he had never met a key figure in the prosecution's case -- namely, his then-girlfriend -- in person. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39117069,00.htm Hacker suspect says his PC was hijacked http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/10/10/hijacked.hacker.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - - - World's worst Internet groomer jailed A 64 year-old paedophile described by police as the "most prolific Internet groomer ever caught" has been jailed for five years. Former postal worker, Douglas Lindsell, was sentenced yesterday at Kingston Crown Court after pleading guilty to attempting to abduct a young girl. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33337.html - - - - - - - - - - LI School Bus Driver Arrested On Child Pornography Charges A Long Island school bus driver has been charged with posting child pornography on an Internet group Web page, police said. Jeffrey Roter, 35, of Kings Park, was arraigned Thursday on charges of promoting a sexual performance by a child and possessing a sexual performance by a child. Roter was arrested late Wednesday after officers executed a search warrant at his home and seized his computer. Police were led to Roter after Internet host site Yahoo! complained to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that he was posting child pornography on one of the site's group pages, said Detective Sgt. John Cowie, the commanding officer of the Suffolk County police computer crimes section. http://www.wnbc.com/education/2544710/detail.html - - - - - - - - - - Police warn world of UK domain scammer Cambridgeshire Police has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a global warning about St Neots- based Dot Com Avenue. Trading as service provider, the company is believed to have raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds by offering to pre-register .eu domain names for companies. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1144248 - - - - - - - - - - FTC Shutters Scam Green Card Sites The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has granted the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) request for a temporary restraining order to close eight Internet sites allegedly misleading consumers into believing the sites, for a fee, could help consumers register for the State Department's annual Diversity Visa (DV) lottery for a chance to apply for a permanent resident visa widely known as a green card. The FTC also claims the sites misled consumers into believing they were affiliated with the U.S. government. http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/3090151 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-10-09-net-immigration-hoax_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Missouri files spam suit under new law Missouri's attorney general filed lawsuits against two alleged junk e-mailers this week, the first cases brought under the state's new antispam law. The lawsuits, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, charge Phillip Nixon of Palm Beach, Fla., and proprietors of the Web site Fundetective.com, of Boca Raton, Fla., with violating the law. http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5089720.html http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2003/10/06/daily65.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-10-09-mo-spammers-sued_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - SunnComm won't sue grad student In an abrupt reversal, SunnComm Technologies said Friday that it will not sue a Princeton University graduate student who published a paper that describes how to bypass CD copy-protection technology simply by pressing the Shift key. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5089448.html - - - - - - - - - - Feds take up arms as computer crime becomes multibillion-dollar problem The rise of computer crime as a major threat to the world economy can be spelled out in a few numbers. The first is $2 billion -- the estimated damage done during just eight days in August when the so-called Blaster worm blitzed personal computers and corporate networks worldwide. http://www.startribune.com/stories/789/4137187.html - - - - - - - - - - Snoop Software Gains Power and Raises Privacy Concerns Earlier this year, Rick Eaton did something unusual in the world of high technology: he made his product weaker. Mr. Eaton is the founder of TrueActive, which makes a computer program that buyers can install on a target computer and monitor everything that the machine's user does on the PC. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/technology/10SPY.html - - - - - - - - - - E-mail filters not fooled by signed spam Bulk e-mailers are digitally signing unsolicited messages in hopes of bypassing popular filtering programs, but updated software has been modified to detect the trick, experts said this week. The trick was noted on several security lists, as the number of junk e-mail messages sporting digital signatures has apparently increased. Digital signatures are used in e-mail to attest to the validity and integrity of an e-mail message; http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5089977.html - - - - - - - - - - Bluetooth has security gaps A report released this week by digital security firm @Stake argues that devices that are equipped with the short-range wireless technology, Bluetooth, could be easily attacked. The report highlights experiments showing that devices boasting the technology can be detected easily and, in some cases, that personal data from the gadgets can be downloaded. http://news.com.com/2110-1002-5089657.html - - - - - - - - - - Security firms round on IE Microsoft's Internet browser makes Web surfing unsafe, according to several security experts. The reputation of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has been mauled by security experts. The comments come after a glut of critical vulnerabilities were discovered in Internet Explorer, and after a delay of nearly four weeks between the very public disclosure of a critical vulnerability in the browser and the roll-out of a software patch. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39117067,00.htm Microsoft Strikes Back on Security Front http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22462.html - - - - - - - - - - Sigaba Enhances Authentication For Its Secure E-mail Sigaba this week introduced secure e-mail software designed to provide authentication, integrating with major authentication mechanisms and e-mail technologies. Sigaba Secure E-mail version 4.0 includes support for "federated" authentication, allowing enterprises to share information about user authentication. The technology supports the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), an OASIS standard for federation. http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml%3Bjsessionid=UMKIZ5IPDHOF0QSNDBCCKHQ?articleID=15202107 - - - - - - - - - - My (brief) career as an ISP The FBI is convinced that I'm an Internet service provider. It's no joke. A letter the FBI sent on Sept. 19 ordered me to "preserve all records and other evidence" relating to my interviews of Adrian Lamo, the so-called homeless hacker, who's facing two criminal charges related to an alleged intrusion into The New York Times' computers. http://rss.com.com/2010-7355_3-5089267.html - - - - - - - - - - Security breach Despite heightened awareness of security vulnerabilities, prying eyes are still making very public intrusions. The complete source code for a forthcoming online game was stolen recently when digital thieves compromised the game maker's Internet security, raising the specter that online players of the coming game may be vulnerable to attack. Valve Software confirmed the theft of "Half Life 2" in response to rumors that the code had been leaked. http://news.com.com/2100-1083_3-5089328.html Theft Adds to VU Games' Woes http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60772,00.html 'Subversive' code could kill off software piracy http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994248 - - - - - - - - - - Homeland response plan relies on connectivity The Homeland Security Department Friday issued an initial national response plan for dealing with emergencies ranging from terrorist attacks to natural disasters. The plan assigns response roles to existing agencies as well as new entities. It also creates the new post of principal federal official to deal with specific emergencies and directs that person to maintain connectivity among emergency response centers. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/23869-1.html - - - - - - - - - - U.S. lists terrorists' Web sites The United States has added Web sites to its list of "foreign terrorist organizations" for the first time, under the category of aliases for conventional groups, a State Department official said on Friday. A list published in the Federal Register includes newkach.org, kahane.org, kahane.net, kahanetzadak.com as aliases for the Jewish group Kahane Chai or Kach, which is suspected of organizing attacks on Palestinians. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105_2-5089602.html http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/10/security.internet.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - - - Tracking Junior With a Microchip A Mexican company has launched a service to implant microchips in children as an anti-kidnapping device. Solusat, the Mexican distributor of the VeriChip -- a rice-size microchip that is injected beneath the skin and transmits a 125-kilohertz radio frequency signal -- is marketing the device as an emergency ID under its new VeriKid program. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60771,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Google bug blocks thousands of sites Google, like the rest of us, seems to be fighting a losing battle to make sense of a rising tide of Internet garbage. But a programming error by the search engine has compounded the problem: by inadvertently blocking thousands of sites from Google users. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33325.html *********************************************************** Computer Forensics Training - Online. An intense, 150 hour, instructor lead program that teaches you computer forensics and helps prepare you for the Certified Computer Examiner exam. 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