August 6, 2002 U.S. monitoring Internet attacks The government was monitoring a series of electronic attacks launched early today against U.S. Internet providers, hours after European authorities passed warnings to the FBI predicting the attacks. The impact from the attacks appeared limited, and there were no reports of outages or even delayed e-mails. A flood of data, spiking nearly 700 percent more than usual traffic, was aimed at Internet providers and Web sites on the East coast starting about 2 a.m. EDT, then shifted toward providers and sites on the West coast, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/sns-internetattack.story http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/490448p-3913841c.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18913.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/08/06/internet.attacks.ap/index.html FBI plays cyber-fear card again http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26553.html Internet attacks apparently fizzle http://www.msnbc.com/news/790812.asp http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/19519-1.html - - - - - - - - Israeli teenagers charged with Goner virus outbreak Five Israeli teenagers have been charged with creating and spreading the W32/Goner-A virus, which spread rapidly on the Internet after its release in December last year. The Ha'aretz newspaper reports that the five were charged at Haifa District Court with wilfully causing damage to computers belonging to companies and private individuals around the world, including NASA, through their involvement in unleashing the virus. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/26544.html http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134147 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2120387,00.html - - - - - - - - Police probe credit union ATM fraud Prosecutors said Monday that as many as 4,000 people used ATMs to steal $15 million from a municipal employees' credit union whose computer security system was damaged in the Sept. 11 attack. Police said they had arrested 55 people and were seeking 46 others. But thousands more are under investigation in what already is one of the largest fraud cases to come out of the terrorist attack. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3804458.htm http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134140 - - - - - - - - DOJ searches FBI for missing laptops Federal police appear to have a bad habit of losing their laptops. The Justice Department's inspector general said Monday that law enforcement groups including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshals Service suffer from "a lack of accountability," with at least 400 laptop computers missing, lost or stolen. The Drug Enforcement Administration has such poor accounting practices, Inspector General Glenn Fine concluded in a 43-page report, that it could not provide a total count of missing laptops. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-948595.html http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/19517-1.html http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0805/web-doj-08-06-02.asp - - - - - - - - Copyright law has hackers on the defensive When Adam Bresson showed how to make copies of copyright-protected videos in a speech at a hacker conference this weekend he realized he was risking arrest for violating U.S. copyright law that landed a Russian man behind bars after the same event last year. But 28-year-old Bresson had his mother, brother and grandparents in the audience and his girlfriend videotaping his talk at the three-day DefCon conference, just in case he was accused of treading too close to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2002-08-06-hackers-copyright_x.htm Hackers push law to limit DefCon delegate demonstrates copyright- breaking tech. Hackers are skating close to the edge of the law in protest over legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which they claim is eroding their rights to make "fair use" copies of media. Two weeks ago at the O'Reilly conference, open source expert Bruce Perens had his attempts to break the DMCA live on stage thwarted by employer Hewlett Packard (HP). But this did not stop a similar attempt by another hacker at the DefCon conference last week. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134144 Activist tackles DMCA at DefCon http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2120406,00.html Hacking is our business http://zdnet.com.com/2251-1110-948422.html Digital privacy: A curmudgeon's guide http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-948564.html - - - - - - - - A legal hack? Only in America Could record and music executives who take advantage of the hacking provisions of a proposed U.S. bill face stiff penalties if they travel to countries that outlaw computer break-ins? Possibly. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., has pushed a measure that would allow intellectual property owners to use technical measures to prevent copyright infringement. These measures include spoofing--the seeding of file-swapping networks with false versions of songs-- and hacking into sharing systems. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-948597.html - - - - - - - - EU launches cyber-squatter survey Commission worried that .eu domain could suffer. The European Commission has launched an online survey asking citizens if they feel threatened or worried by "cyber-squatters". The Commission fears that cyber-squatters might undermine the launch of the European Union's new .eu internet domain, and says it will use the findings of the consultation to consider taking action. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134137 - - - - - - - - Flaw discovered in Symantec firewall A weakness in the way new connections are handled could allow an attacker to hijack any session, according to researchers. Researchers have discovered a flaw in Symantec's Raptor firewall that could allow attackers to hijack legitimate communications with a protected system. The vulnerability lies in the way the software creates and uses random numbers -- called TCP Initial Sequence Numbers -- for each new connection. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2120375,00.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-948579.html - - - - - - - - College Seeks Security in Thumbs It's down with passwords and up with thumbs for a school in Iowa trying to keep its data safe. While the plan to use thumbprint scanners by the West Des Moines campus of the Des Moines Area Community College might sound like Big Brother to some, students seem unfazed by the idea. Even students at the University of California at Berkeley, with its reputation for protest, shrugged at the thought of logging into a school computer with their thumb. Of course, it's not happening on their campus. http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,53912,00.html - - - - - - - - New Infection Vectors for Malware The vectors that malicious software use to invade systems are constantly evolving: adapting to new technologies, changing to avoid defense mechanisms and adding on to attack new weaknesses. While not an attempt to predict the future, this article will look at what infection vectors have been historically effective, how theyve changed over time and what they probably will do in the future. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1615 - - - - - - - - Tests Raise Questions of Face-Scan Technology's Reliability Experts in computer vision systems say facial recognition is still an inexact science. The type of camera used and the quality of lighting can make a difference. The makers of computer systems that can recognize human faces say their products passed a test at Boston's Logan International Airport with flying colors and claim they've gotten a bum rap from a security consultant who says otherwise. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18899.html *********************************************************** 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 2000-2002, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.