NewsBits for August 19, 2005 ************************************************************ Virus knocks out Customs computers for hours Travelers arriving in the United States from abroad were stuck in long lines at airports nationwide when a virus shut down an U.S. Customs and Border Protection computer system for several hours, officials said. Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the virus impacted computer systems at a number of airports Thursday night, including those in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas and Laredo, Texas. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/12425524.htm http://www.fcw.com/article90197-08-19-05-Web http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081900310.html Zotob, PnP Worms Slam 13 DaimlerChrysler Plants A round of Internet worm infections knocked 13 of DaimlerChrysler's U.S. auto manufacturing plants offline for almost an hour this week, stranding some 50,000 auto workers as infected Microsoft Windows systems were patched, a company spokesperson told eWEEK. Plants in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Delaware and Michigan were knocked offline at around 3:00 PM on Tuesday, stopping vehicle production at those plants for up to 50 minutes, according to spokesperson Dave Elshoff. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1849914,00.asp http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5840156.html - - - - - - - - - - Finnish security exec arrested over bank hack The data security chief at the Helsinki branch of financial services firm GE Money has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to steal 20,000 Euros from the firm's online bank account. The 26 year-old allegedly copied passwords and e- banking software onto a laptop used by accomplices to siphon off money from an unnamed bank. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/finnish_wifi_bank_hack/ http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5840156.html - - - - - - - - - - Air Force investigates data breach The U.S. Air Force is notifying more than 33,000 officers that their personal data has been breached by a malicious hacker, the Air Force said today. The hacker used a legitimate user's ID and password to access personal information on the officers contained in the Assignment Management System (AMS), an online program used for assignment preferences and career management, the Air Force said. That data included career information, birth dates and Social Security numbers. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,104080,00.html http://www.fcw.com/article90229-08-19-05-Web AFPC notifies Airmen of criminal activity http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123011366 - - - - - - - - - - Singapore arrests three for music piracy Singapore police say they have arrested three people, including a student, in the city-state's first online music piracy case. The unnamed trio are alleged to have at least 20,000 MP3 music files "intended for distribution" on their computers, police said in a statement. They could be jailed for up to 5 years and fined 100,000 Singapore dollars ($A79,220). It was not immediately clear when they would be charged. http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/singapore-arrests-three-for-music-piracy/2005/08/18/1123958162971.html Mob Pirates: Menace or Myth? http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,68490,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Man mugs online game characters A Chinese exchange student has been arrested in Kawaga prefecture, southern Japan, on charges of using software "bots" to mug characters from Lineage II and then selling the ill-gotten gains for cash, the Mainichi Daily News reports via New Scientist. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/online_mugging/ - - - - - - - - - - Longview man guilty in child porn case A Longview man plead guilty Thursday to two counts of child pornography. Gregg County 124th District Judge Alvin Khoury followed the state's recommendation and sentenced Larry Eugene Niebrugge to 10 years for third degree possession of child porn and 15 years for second degree promotion. The sentences are to be served concurrently with credit for time served. http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/08/19/20050819LNJChildporn.html - - - - - - - - - - Ukrainian Government Outlaws Spam Ukrainian government has brought in new regulations on telecomunnication services. The rules forbid ordering and sending spam, the Rosbalt news agency reported Wednesday. Spam is determined in the document as electronic messages not ordered preliminarily by receivers that are sent for numerous addresses or have no reliable information on the sender or if a receiver cannot stop the sending via informing the sender. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/08/17/ukrainespam.shtml - - - - - - - - - - New law targets hidden Net tolls New York-A new law that's apparently the first in the U.S. threatens to penalize Internet service providers that fail to warn users that some dial- up numbers can ring up enormous long-distance phone bills even though they appear local. A long distance call even within the same area code can cost 8 to 12 cents a minute, adding up to hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month. http://news.findlaw.com/ap/ht/58/08-18-2005/4794000a41305acd.html - - - - - - - - - - Workaround for Unpatched IE Flaw A few news outlets have called attention to an unpatched, critical flaw tied to Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser that could let bad guys take over vulnerable Windows machines if they browse a site controlled by potential attackers. http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/08/workaround_for_.html Exploit for unpatched IE vuln fuels hacker fears http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/0day_ie_exploit_fears/ - - - - - - - - - - Hacker war A war has broken out between hackers behind viruses that exploit a recently discovered loophole in Windows 2000. The viruses written by the competing hacker groups are fighting it out for supremacy on infected machines. Some of the variants seek out and delete rival viruses they find on machines they manage to penetrate. The slew of malicious programs exploiting the loophole caused trouble for many organisations early this week as the bugs began infecting computers. http://www.crime-research.org/news/19.08.2005/1446/ - - - - - - - - - - Universities grapple with ID theft Despite their image as leafy enclaves of higher learning shielded from the real world, universities across the United States are finding themselves on the front lines of the battle against identity theft. With their huge databases, universities may rival financial institutions as attractive targets for the crime, estimated to affect over 9 million Americans a year at the total cost of more than $50 billion, experts said. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5838784.html - - - - - - - - - - Legal music options fail to slow file-sharing on campus As a college freshman, Will Mount feasted on the free but mostly illegal music available through online file-sharing software such as Kazaa. Now a senior, Mount has seen his free music fix become legal, thanks to an initiative by American University in Washington, D.C., to dissuade students from using its computer network to illegally swap music online. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/12426744.htm - - - - - - - - - - SMS spoof: The growing menace SMS spoofing is emerging as a menace and might hamper the growth of the mobile industry. For the uninitiated, with SMS spoofing a cyber criminal can send an SMS to anyone on the cell phone without touching it. This also implies that if the person (who receives the message) goes to the reply mode of the phone and writes any reply text after receiving the spoofed SMS, it will again come back to the same person. This has serious security ramifications and the scope for misuse is enormous. http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickies/1185408.cms - - - - - - - - - - Hackers Create OS X for Non-Apple Hardware The OS X hack works only on systems with processors manufactured by Intel since 2001 and AMD since 2003. It requires a fairly advanced installation process that will be hard to understand for regular computer users. Hackers have cracked a security feature in the forthcoming x86 OS X operating system that is designed to prevent the software being run on non-Apple hardware. http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11200002IUGW TPM Hacks of Mac OS X for Intel Beta Prove Little http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1849870,00.asp - - - - - - - - - - Worms meet corporations in legal minefield I SPENT MOST OF Tuesday morning at a financial services provider, and the talk of the morning was all about a large financial services giant and the Zotob worm. Any guesses why? It was claimed that said large financial giant was another notch in the Zotob author's belt, and while they were not down per se, it caused problems, slow networks, and downed services. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25509 - - - - - - - - - - How 'limited' malcode pulled off the year's biggest attack Ken Pfeil was one of the lucky ones. While other companies frantically tried to blunt a massive, multi-malcode attack on networks affected by the Plug and Play flaw in Windows 2000, his enterprise hummed along. "We've been tying up some loose ends, but we're hearing about these attacks much more than we're seeing," said Pfeil, CSO for Capital IQ, a New York-based division of Standard & Poor's with 1,100 employees. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci1116775,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Again With the Phishing I don't usually air the contents of my private e-mails in this column. I feel no such qualms regarding my editor's mail, however. Here's the beginning of one that he received yesterday: "Dear Wall Street Journal Online Subscriber, "As a leader in the online information industry, The Wall Street Journal Online wants to educate our subscribers about an increasingly prevalent online scam commonly known as 'phishing.' " http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081900598.html - - - - - - - - - - China cracks down on cavorting net floozie The powers that be in China have cracked down on a cavorting net floozie who has become national celebrity due to her suggestive online posturing. Shi Hengxia - aka "Sister Furong" (Hibiscus) - first appeared on two Beijing university internet bulletin boards after apparently failing to gain a place at either. She stuck up pics of herself splayed over a stone ball with accompanying text declaring her many virtues. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/hibiscus_nipped_in_bud/ - - - - - - - - - - Offenders database 'to cut crime' Police will have quick access to offenders' details A computer system allowing police to share details of dangerous offenders has been unveiled by the Home Office. The PS10m Violent and Sex Offenders Register (Visor) is intended to help reduce re-offending and contains information on 47,000 people. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4163764.stm http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2141334/criminal-database-goes-online *********************************************************** 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 2000-2005, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.