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419 email scams, once easily identifiable by their quaintly worded pleas for help in recovering large sums of money trapped in overseas banks, are no longer so easy to spot. Taking cues from the headlines, these scams have morphed to exploit people's sympathy for tsunami victims, Iraqis wronged by Saddam Hussein, and even the families of American soldiers killed in Iraq.
There are still other nefarious variations on these scams that employ chat rooms for singles, exploit the Internet Relay system for the deaf, buy merchandise on online auction sites with bogus cashiers checks, and even create fake banks on the Internet.
The common theme in all of these scams is conning a victim into sending money via wire transfer overseas. To learn more, see the report at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8171053
Gary McKinnon, an unemployed former computer engineer described as "the world's biggest computer hacker," was arrested in June and charged with breaking into vulnerable computers in US military networks and hacking the networks of six private companies and organizations. For details, see http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/19164714
In June, hackers booby-trapped the MSN website in South Korea in an attempt to steal passwords from visitors. The break-in was thought to be facilitated by the site administrators' failure to apply Microsoft software patches. For details, see http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=164300062
Child exploitation via the Internet is being aggressively investigated by a state-of-the art forensic computer lab known as the Cyber Crimes Center (C3). C3, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, is run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In addition to combating child porn, C3 has also gone after a global network of software pirates and has helped identify Internet rug dealers. For details, see http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/mostread/s_340904.html
A British high court has upheld a ban on sending videos or DVDs through the mail or selling them online. For details, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/24/adultshops_no_mailorder/
Some hackers are now engaging in extortion plots. Employing a new form of attack known as "ransom-ware," they hack into a victim's system, lock up valuable data, and demand a ransom for releasing it. For details, see http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,67622,00.html
After paying nearly $500,000 in consumer redress, Creaghan A. Harry is barred from making any further claims about "anti-aging"/ "HGH" products sold over the Internet. Harry, who does business as Hitech Marketing, Scientific Life Nutrition, and Rejuvenation Health Corporation, reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission nearly one year after being charged with violating the FTC act and anti-spam laws. He may yet face costs of $5.9 million. For details, see http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0423085/0423085.htm
The Department of Homeland Security falls woefully short in the area of cybersecurity, according to a May 26 report by the Government Accountability Office. For more details, see the Computerworld news story at http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,102489,00.html and GAO Report GAO-05-434 (78 pp., May 26,2005), which is linked from http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/repandtest.html
In May, the FBI began executing 10 search warrants across the U.S. against members of the P2P filesharing network "Elite Torrents." This marked the first criminal enforcement against the theft of copyrighted material via the Internet. See http://www.cybercrime.gov/BitTorrent.htm Secret Service Teams with FBI to Fight Cybercrime with ‘Hacker Hunters' Now that hacking has become the province of organized crime, government agencies are trying to meet the challenge by forming teams of "hacker hunters" to infiltrate, expose, and prosecute cybercrooks. See http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_22/b3935001_mz001.htm
One of the world's biggest spam gangs was shut down in May by a court order in Massachusetts. The gangs dealt in online sales of pornography, pills, pirated software, and fake watches. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4539715.stm