NewsBits for January 12, 2004 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Hackers vandalise home pages of 45 city businesses A group of computer hackers calling themselves Spykids has struck 45 Cape Town business websites and defaced their home pages. The incident comes amid a dramatic reduction in the number of hackers targeting South African websites, according to Reinhardt Buys, an internet lawyer in Cape Town. http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=322936 - - - - - - - - - - Citibank warns of new 'phishing' scam Citibank on Monday warned customers not to fall for an e-mail fraud that urges them to log into a bogus Web site to verify that their accounts have not been tampered with. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3939175/ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-01-12-citibank-phishing_x.htm Barclays scam email exploits new IE flaw http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39119033,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Web blamed for surge in child porn A children's charity is warning that third-generation mobile phones will further increase the incidence of child pornography. Convictions for child pornography have rocketed in Britain during the past 13 years, with computers and the Internet giving paedophiles increased ability to prey on children and trade images of them, a study said on Monday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39119032,00.htm http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3939971/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/12/britain.porn.reut/index.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34816.html XXX ... in a Tom Clancy game? http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/05/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm - - - - - - - - - - 419ers reduced to Welsh penury An email received this morning confirms what we had long suspected: that Nigerian 419ers have finally run out of steam in the creative department. Gone are the entertaining sagas of war-torn Africa, of unclaimed billions in gold bullion, of mysterious safety deposit boxes. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34813.html - - - - - - - - - - 'Potato' computer scam under investigation German police are investigating after an angry man returned a computer he had just bought saying it was packed with small potatoes instead of computer parts. The store replaced the computer free of charge but became suspicious when he returned a short time later with another potato-filled computer casing, police in the western city of Kaiserslautern said on Monday. ``The second time he said he didn't need a computer any more and asked for his money back in cash,'' a police spokesman said. Police are now investigating the man for fraud. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105_2-5139288.html - - - - - - - - - - Radio hackers hurl drive by abuse at Burger King customers Burger King customers visiting a drive-through restaurant had to run a gamut of abuse after pranksters succeeded in hacking into the outlet's wireless intercom system. Investigators believe teenage practical jokers are behind the insults delivered to Burger King customers at an outlet outside Troy, Michigan over the last fortnight. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/34825.html - - - - - - - - - - 'Serial ID thieves' banned from auction sites A US Federal Court last week imposed an order prohibiting two alleged ID fraudsters from taking part in Internet auctions. The duo was also ordered to pay more than $93,000 in compensation to consumers at the end of a civil case brought by US consumer watchdogs. James B. Thompson and Susan B. Germek allegedly used stolen identities to sell nonexistent goods in online auctions in a ruse designed to make it appear that innocent third parties were guilty of fraud. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/34815.html - - - - - - - - - - Fax.com Still Dodging Legal Slaps Federal regulators slapped junk-fax blaster Fax.com with a $5.3 million fine earlier this week, but the government may find that collecting the money will be as difficult as getting off Fax.com's spam list. Just ask Covington & Burling, a law firm that won a $2.3 judgment against the junk marketer in April 2003, but has not received a penny yet, according to attorney Jason Levine. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61861,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Computer Crime Typology Experts consider that computer crimes today represent more serious danger for our country than 5 years ago. According to Economic Crime Unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine official statistics for 4 months of 2001 year, 7 crimes, in 2002 25, for 6 months of 2003 - 51 crimes have been revealed. It is necessary to note that qualification of the revealed criminal acts in sphere of computer and Internet technologies, except actions provided for by Articles of Section 26 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, is based on Articles providing theft, causing of damage, illegal actions with payment orders and other means of access to bank accounts, illegal actions concerning information with restricted access, etc. http://www.crime-research.org/library/Golubev1203.html Ukraine: a new unit for fighting credit cards crimes http://www.crime-research.org/news/2004/01/Mess1001.html - - - - - - - - - - Hackers Crack Cyberspace The sprawling high-speed network in Korea is the pride of the nation with more than 10 million households connected to the broadband Internet, marking the world's highest penetration rate. However, the world-envied infrastructure has also generated some headaches including hacking, which has become more ubiquitous like the network itself. http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200401/kt2004011219073411800.htm - - - - - - - - - - Bring me the head of trojan Xombe The net community has cut off the infection mechanism of a trojan, called Xombe, which poses as a Windows XP security update. Xombe, the latest in a string of backdoor programs designed to compromise Windows PCs, is capable of stealing passwords or turning compromised machines into components of an attack network under the control of unknown crackers. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7791 Veiled virus http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=news.view&news=3742 Xombe Trojan imitates Microsoft security warning http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39119005,00.htm http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=displaynews&NewsID=853 Putting security first http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/computers_and_tech/article/0,1626,ECP_755_2569389,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Intelligence community seeks protection from inside threats A team of companies led by a Lockheed Martin Corp. subsidiary is building a tool to help the intelligence community keep tabs on the spooks behind its firewalls. The Voltaire system will integrate existing technology to identify suspicious activity by insiders with legitimate access to sensitive information. The National Security Agencys Advanced Research and Development Activity is funding development. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24622-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Adobe, others slip anticounterfeiting code into apps Adobe and other makers of image-manipulation programs have, at the behest of a little-known group of national banks, inserted secret technology into their programs to foil counterfeiting, the companies acknowledged this week. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5138816.html - - - - - - - - - - Yahoo fixes Messenger transfer flaw Yahoo has fixed a bug in its instant messenger application after it was found to be vulnerable to buffer-overflow errors when receiving files, potentially leaving PCs open to attack. A serious security bug in Yahoo's Instant Messenger, which could cause a buffer-overflow error and leave users' machines open to malicious code, was finally repaired on Thursday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39119003,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Digital Signatures And European Laws People who do business on the Internet require security and trust. In electronic commerce and communication you can't see the person you are speaking with, you can't see the documents that prove one's identity, and you can't even know if the web site you are connected to belongs to the society it says. You must also ask yourself: is this indeed the contract my business partner has sent to me or has someone unauthorized seen and changed it before it reached my desk? What will happen if I have problems with the contract and I must take it to a court of law? http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1756 - - - - - - - - - - Errant E-Mail Shames RFID Backer The companies and organizations behind radio- frequency identification tags are scrambling to improve their image by promising to protect the privacy rights of consumers, after they were caught trying to dig up dirt about one of their most effective critics. The companies also said they are developing devices to disable RFID tags, which they are placing on everything from shampoo bottles to suit jackets in the United States and Europe. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61868,00.html Tech plays tag with retailers (series of stories) http://zdnet.com.com/2251-1110-5139436.html Microsoft retail project taps into RFID http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3938626/ - - - - - - - - - - Parents spy on teens by phone PARENTS will be able to track their teenagers 24 hours a day using secret bounce-back SMS messages. Parents using the "text track" technology get a return SMS instantly revealing their child's location. Teens will have no idea when their parents have done a check-up. Child tracking will be within the budget of average parents. In the UK, setting it up costs less than $100. http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,8360772%255E11869,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Criminal justice IT pilot goes live Law enforcement agencies in Warwickshire today went live with an interface between systems that will form the cornerstone of the PS1.2bn national programme to link up criminal justice IT. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1151976 - - - - - - - - - - U.S. to Push Airlines for Passenger Records Despite stiff resistance from airlines and privacy advocates, the U.S. government plans to push ahead this year with a vast computerized system to probe the backgrounds of all passengers boarding flights in the United States. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8504-2004Jan11.html - - - - - - - - - - Arizona educators ponder face recognition Arizona could be the first state in the country to launch a biometric-based system to try to catch registered sex offenders and missing children who end up on school property. http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2004/0112/web-face-01-12-04.asp *********************************************************** Computer Forensics Training - Online. 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