NewsBits for March 24, 2004 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Dutch Internet blackmailer gets 10 years A 46-year-old Dutch chip programmer who tried to blackmail dairy giant Campina using the most up- to-date Internet technologies, has been jailed for 10 years by a Dutch court on blackmail charges and five counts of attempted murder. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36485.html - - - - - - - - - - Man Indicted in Wiretap Case A Huntington Beach man Tuesday became the first person in the nation to be charged with illegally using an electronic device to record someone's computer keystrokes, according to the U.S. attorney's office. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Larry Lee Ropp, 46, on one count of wiretapping, said Thom Mrozek a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-wiretap24mar24,1,1110766.story http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36489.html - - - - - - - - - - Employee Charged With Theft A former El Monte police officer who was fired for theft has been arrested on charges of reselling $2 million worth of laptops he bought with the credit card of his Aliso Viejo employer, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday. Steven Duane Ford, 51, of Yorba Linda had been working for Covenant Care Corp., which operates nursing homes, since 2001. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-theft24mar24,1,3188280.story - - - - - - - - - - Virus warning: UK wakes up to Netsky.Peak Reports are pouring in of UK companies waking up to a barrage of emails resulting from the Netsky variant P hitting what one antivirus expert has described as its "peak". http://www.silicon.com/software/security/0,39024655,39119504,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Interior Back Online Amid Security Flaw The Interior Department will go back online after an appeals court Wednesday blocked a judge's ruling that ordered most of the department's computers disconnected from the Internet. It took the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit just three hours to grant the government's request to restore Interior's Internet access. It had been shut down since March 15 to protect money owed to American Indians from computer hackers. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/consumer_news/8267741.htm - - - - - - - - - - Filter flaw vexes Hotmail, Yahoo A flaw in the way Web-based e-mail services Yahoo Mail and Hotmail filter messages left users open to attack via specially crafted online scripts, a security specialist said Tuesday. The glitch created the possibility of attacks that could have let Web miscreants steal passwords, access the content of e-mail opened by victims or even spread worms through Web e-mail, said Lee Dagon, director of research and development for Israeli computer security firm GreyMagic Software. http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5178155.html - - - - - - - - - - Security breach delays Gnome 2.6 release An intrusion by a 'dumb cracker' may set back the release of the latest version of the open-source Gnome desktop environment. A security breach is likely to delay for several days today's scheduled release of the next version of the popular Gnome open source desktop environment, a member of the release team said. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39149837,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - TSMC files 'verification' of SMIC spy claim TSMC has beefed up its industrial espionage action against fellow chip foundry SMIC with what it claims are eyewitness accounts of its rival's alleged attempts to steal its trade secrets. The world's largest chip foundry filed "eyewitness affidavits and new technical verification of trade secret misappropriation by SMIC" with the US District Court of Northern California this week. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/36481.html TSMC calls rival chip 'strikingly similar' http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-5178653.html - - - - - - - - - - Senators seek to define, then ban, spyware Computer spyware is noxious and harmful and must be stopped as soon as people can figure out exactly what it is, members of a Senate subcommittee said on Tuesday. Programs that secretly track computer users' activities are becoming an online scourge rivaling "spam" e-mail and should be outlawed before they prompt consumers to abandon the Internet, members of the Senate communications subcommittee said. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5178434.html http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62784,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2004-03-24-defining-spyware_x.htm Survey uncovers false sense of data security http://www.vnunet.com/News/1153790 Panic-free security http://www.itweek.co.uk/Analysis/1153762 - - - - - - - - - - World's toughest cyber law on trial in Romania A decisive test for what is called the "toughest cybercrime law in the world" began on Tuesday with the opening of a high-profile case of a Romanian man charged with spreading a computer virus. Dan Dumitru Ciobanu, wearing black jeans and leather jacket, appeared in the northern city of Iasi. He is accused of making "Blaster.F", a mild copy of one of last summer's harshest Internet worms. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-03-23-hacker-trial_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Online Swindlers, Called 'Phishers,' Lure Unwary Last year, EarthLink, the big Internet access provider, went hunting for phishers. It started a campaign to track down people who were sending e-mail messages that pretended to be from EarthLink but were actually fraudulent attempts to steal customers' passwords, credit card numbers and other information. What it found was that of the dozen or so people it could clearly identify as engaged in the practice known as phishing, more than half were under 18. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/technology/24PHIS.html - - - - - - - - - - The sophisticated adversary Darl McBride, the embattled CEO of The SCO Group Inc., visited our office recently and when he showed up, his eyes were sagging. They were red-rimmed, glassy and bloodshot and, overall, he looked worn. But it wasn't because of the litigious morass he'd created by suing IBM Corp. and others over the alleged plagiarism of Unix code that his company owns--at least not directly. McBride looked haggard because of a virus called Mydoom. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,91597,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Gateway adds fingerprint sensor to notebook Gateway on Wednesday announced that one of its notebooks can be equipped with a fingerprint sensor to prevent access to e-mail and files by unauthorized users. The sensor is an optional feature that can be built into the palm rest of the Gateway 450+, the company said. The biometrically equipped notebook is aimed at security-conscious government agencies and corporations, as well as schools that want to authenticate identities for test taking and distance learning. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5178842.html Identity protection is a full-time jobfor each user and sysadmin http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/25397-1.html - - - - - - - - - - AMD outlines future Opteron security features OUR READERS WILL recall that AMD was one of the first to jump in bed with the Trusted Computing "Palladium" initiative when that kicked off some years ago. And this morning we had the chance to talk to Geoffrey Strongin, AMD's platform security architect, who gave us some interesting information on what will happen in the future. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14919 - - - - - - - - - - iPass offers security policy management service Remote access specialist iPass has said the next version of its software will include a feature to handle security policy management on behalf of its customers. Any user connecting to the service will have its patch and anti-virus status checked by iPass before it is allowed through to the company network. http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=129455 - - - - - - - - - - Taking security home This week Simon Perry, vice president of security strategy EMEA at Computer Associates, stresses the importance of providing security for computer users at home as well as in the office. As an IT manager, where does your responsibility end? When staff are in the office you are reasonably expected to monitor, manage and support their technology. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1153781 - - - - - - - - - - Inspector: DHS lacks info sharing standard The Homeland Security Department has yet to develop common information sharing procedures and/or efficiently manage its contracts, the DHS inspector general said today. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0322/web-dhs-03-24-04.asp Homeland Security IG puts focus on departments IT woes http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/25399-1.html Cooper aims for better info sharing http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0322/web-cooper-03-24-04.asp - - - - - - - - - - Teen who battled Microsoft over Web name donates to charity A teenager who tangled with Microsoft Corp. over his mikerowesoft.com domain name says he's donating most of his legal defense fund to a hospice for terminally ill children. Mike Rowe, a 17-year-old resident of Victoria, was accused of copyright infringement by the software giant in January. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/8265561.htm - - - - - - - - - - Wireless networking the focus of public safety communication Wireless networking, Einstein said, is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. And radio operates exactly the same way: You send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. Einsteins catless network is rapidly becoming the top cat in public safety communications, according to local government speakers at a session on wireless networking at FOSEs E-Town. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/25401-1.html *********************************************************** Computer Forensics Training - Online. 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