Cybercrime in the News

Portland NASA Hacker Gets Six Months

Gregory Aaron Herns, a 21-year-old from Portland, Oregon, was sentenced to six months in jail for hacking the NASA network, causing systems crashes that took hours to fix. For details, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/nasa_cracker_jailed/

"online drugs: Easy to buy, tough to control"

What's behind the dangerous surge in unregulated Internet drug sales? The Cleveland Plain Dealer's December 19 article, "Come along on a ride to some unchecked virtual drugstores," describes one investigative reporter's experience trying to track unsolicited online prescription drug offers to their source. See http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?base/news/110345384929970.xml

Local Child Porn Distributor Gets Hard Time

In October, 53-year-old Robert Earl Smith of Eugene was sentenced to more than 50 years in prison for producing and disseminating child pornography over the Internet. See http://www.crime-research.org/news/06.10.2004/692/

Teen Author of Blaster Virus Faces Jail

A Minnesota teenager who confessed to writing the Blaster.B variant of the Blaster virus is looking at a possible three-year jail sentence and a fine of $600,000.For details, see http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39185483,00.htm

Online Credit Card Processor Hacked

In September, online credit card transactions being processed by Authorize.net, one of the nation's largest credit card processors, were disrupted by a series of major hack attacks. Tens of thousand of online merchants lost business as a result of the attacks, which are still under investigation. For details, see http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5378217.html and http://wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,65039,00.html

Brazil: Hackers' Paradise

Eight out of ten of the world's hackers currently operate out of Brazil, according to a recent electronic crime report released at an international crime-fighting conference in Brasilia. The report also noted that the overwhelming majority of such attacks targeted U.S. websites. See http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=4251

Undercover Cops Nab 28 ID Thieves

In late October the U.S. Secret Service concluded a successful sting operation by arresting 28 identity thieves who were trading tips on fraud and forgery on the Internet. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/29/operation_firewall/

Hackers on University Campuses

1. George Mason University: The names, photos, and Social Security information of 30,000 faculty, staff, and students were stolen by hackers. The security breach was discovered on January 3. See http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5519592.html
2. University of Texas: In November a federal grand jury meted out a four-count indictment to a former University of Texas student who hacked his way into the university system and stole 37,000 Social Security numbers and other personal information belonging to faculty, staff, and students. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6408290/
3. Purdue University: In late October officials confirmed that Purdue's computer system had been penetrated by unauthorized intruders and urged all faculty, staff, and students to change their passwords as a precautionary measure. See http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9786

Phishing News

Phishing scams steal $500 million from U.S. consumers. This fall the Ponemon Institute (http://www.ponemon.org/) reported a dramatic increase in the volume and frequency of spoofing and phishing incidents online. Among the more popular scams are emails purporting to be from well known businesses such as eBay and CitiBank. These bogus notices try to trick users into revealing their account details and passwords for use in identity theft crimes. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/29/phishing_survey/

Tsunami Relief Scam Crackdown Begins

The FBI has arrested a Pennsylvania spammer charged with soliciting donations for a bogus relief fund via the Internet. This is the first arrest in a nationwide crackdown on dozens of criminals seeking to profit from tragic headlines. For details, see http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=TSUNAMI-SCAM-01-14-05&cat=AN

Ireland Battles Rogue Autodialers

To combat a surge in rogue autodialing scams, Ireland has blocked direct dialup Internet connections to 13 countries. Most of the blocked countries are in the South Pacific. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/22/ireland_rogue_dialler_crackdown/

US Software Pirate Jailed

A Virginia court sentenced 33-year-old Kishan Singh to 18 months in prison after he was convicted of selling thousands of pirated software programs via a pay-for-access website. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/10/software_pirate_jailed