NewsBits for November 4, 2004 ************************************************************ Convicted spammer gets nine years in slammer A brother and sister were convicted yesterday of three felony charges of sending thousands of junk e-mails through servers located in Virginia, according to Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore. The convictions of Jeremy Jaynes, who was sentenced to nine years in prison, and his sister, Jessica DeGroot, who was fined $7,500, were the nation's first-ever felony spam convictions, Kilgore said in a statement. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was found not guilty,the attorney general said. http://computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,97229,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/04/sibling_spammers_convicted/ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-03-spam_x.htm http://www.vnunet.com/news/1159170 http://www.vnunet.com/news/1159162 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6401091/ http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-spam4nov04,1,636948.story http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5438340.html Law enforcement could help put the squeeze on spammers The conviction of and possibility of jail time for a pair of spammers could help turn the tide in the fight against unsolicited commercial e-mail, one security expert says. The risk of prosecution will change the profit model for what has been a low-cost method of marketing over the Internet, said Phyllis Schneck, vice president of strategic development at CipherTrust Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/27840-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Suspected hacking mastermind on 'most wanted' list The first man in the US to be indicted for launching denial-of-service attacks has made the FBI's 'most wanted' list after going on the run. The FBI has added a new kind of criminal to its most wanted list -- a man on the run accused of hiring hackers to damage the businesses of his competitors. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,39172604,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Texas student indicted for hacking A federal grand jury has indicted a former University of Texas student on charges he hacked into the university system and stole Social Security numbers and other personal information from more than 37,000 students, faculty and staff. Christopher Andrew Phillips, 21, is charged in the four-count indictment with fraud and with storing credit card and bank account information with the intent to defraud. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6408290/ http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/10100399.htm - - - - - - - - - - Two Traffic Police officers became heroes of porno-story Recently, a student of the local University in Mordovia (Russian Federation), distributing porno stories through the Internet, pleaded guilty for calumny. He was sentenced to one year of probation for placing story about two homosexuals on the Internet. The main personages were two Traffic Police officers. http://www.crime-research.org/news/04.11.2004/761/ - - - - - - - - - - Phishers recruiting money mules Phishers are recruiting money laundering "mules" in the UK with "make-money-at-home" offers tendered via email, said a security firm this week. According to Sophos, a UK-based anti-virus vendor, messages titled "Work From Home: Prepare to Succeed" have been mass-mailed by phishing gangs looking for people to wash ill-gotten gains by moving funds into and out of their bank accounts. http://www.itnews.com.au/msoft_storycontent.asp?ID=9&Art_ID=22336 Phishers develop sophisticated lure http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/04/phishing_exploit/ Phishers Widen Their Net http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Phishers-Widen-Their-Net&story_id=28135 Latest phishing scam silent but violent http://www.vnunet.com/news/1159171 - - - - - - - - - - Watch out there's an IE bug about Microsoft's ubiquitous IE web browser software became the subject of yet another security flap this week. The latest buffer overflow vulnerability could be used to inject hostile code into vulnerable systems, security clearing house US CERT warned yesterday. The flaw stems from a bug in the way particular versions of IE process certain attributes in the IFRAME HTML tag. IE6 on Win XP SP1 and Win 2000 are both vulnerable. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/04/ie_iframe_vuln/ Exploit code makes IE flaw more dangerous http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5439370.html - - - - - - - - - - MP takes aim at eBay over gun sales A Labour MP is to present Home Secretary David Blunkett with a list of handguns that have been made available for sale on internet auction site, eBay, over the last four days. Steve McCabe, member for Birmingham Hall Green, has called on eBay to pay closer attention to goods for sale on its pages after he was able to buy an air rifle on the auction site last month. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/04/ebay_blunkett/ - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft to help users prep for patching Microsoft Corp. will give customers advance notice of its monthly security updates in an effort to help them prepare to install related software patches, the company announced today. Starting this month, Microsoft will publish on its Web site a summary of planned security bulletins three days before they are released in their entirety. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,97221,00.html Microsoft opens up corporate security bulletin to all http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19472 Microsoft: Security requires teamwork http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5439285.html - - - - - - - - - - UK police upgrade network A deal with Cable & Wireless to upgrade the communications network used by police forces across the UK aims to improve safe data transfer between organisations. Criminal justice agencies and 250,000 users across the UK's police forces are to receive an updated national network for the secure exchange of data across organisational boundaries, it was announced on Thursday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/networks/0,39020345,39172717,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - How zombie networks fuel cybercrime In June, the websites of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft disappeared for hours when their servers were swamped with hundreds of thousands of simultaneous webpage requests that they could not possibly service. It sounds a tough attack to orchestrate, but executing it could not have been simpler. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996616 - - - - - - - - - - Security improvements essential for ebusiness to succeed Better IT security and identity management is needed if online commerce and egovernment services are to succeed, according to RSA Security chief executive Arthur Coviello. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1159178 *********************************************************** 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. 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