August 19, 2002 Police net Nigerian fraudsters Cyber thieves set up fictitious bank website. South African police have arrested 15 Nigerian men suspected of fooling thousands of people into sending them money by pretending to be the central bank of South Africa. According to Associated Press reports the alleged gang operated via email and promised to pay its victims a commission for looking after $10m. It directed them to a website which looked similar to that of the South African Central Bank. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134452 - - - - - - - - Russia accuses FBI agent of hacking Russia has accused an FBI agent who nabbed two Russian hackers of downloading evidence against the pair from a server based in Russia without authorization. The charges come nearly two years after FBI investigators lured two Chelyabinsk, Russia, residents suspected of hacking to Seattle with false offers of jobs with a fictitious security firm. The FBI fooled the suspects into accessing their overseas computers from the United States, and then used the same passwords to download large files that were subsequently used for evidence. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-950719.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2120974,00.html - - - - - - - - Chinese site targeted for illegal music downloads Seeking to block access to a Chinese Web site it says is trafficking in pirated music, the U.S. recording industry is suing four companies that control the domestic Internet's main long- haul pipelines. The music industry wants an immediate federal court order that would compel AT&T Broadband, Cable and Wireless, Sprint and WorldCom's UUNet to prevent U.S. Internet users from reaching Listen4ever.com. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/504040p-4016997c.html - - - - - - - - US military security wide open Security company gains access to military network. A security company has claimed that it was able to gain access to sensitive US military and government computers. ForensicTec said that it used easily available software to identify unprotected computers, and could have pried into email, personnel records and financial information. The company's president, Brett O'Keeffe, told the Washington Post that his firm had come forward to highlight the security failures. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134450 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2199386.stm - - - - - - - - Sprint Security Faulted in Vegas Hacks Telco faces forced security audits as vice hack case wraps up in sin city. Citing the "compelling, credible testimony" of ex-hacker Kevin Mitnick, state officials urged Nevada regulators to force a series of dramatic security reforms on Las Vegas telephone company Sprint of Nevada last week, as final arguments were filed in the case of an in-room adult entertainment operator who believes he's being driven out of business by phone hackers. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/587 - - - - - - - - IRS loses track of computers The Internal Revenue Service can't account for computers that it lent to volunteers who help the elderly and others prepare their tax returns, according to a Treasury inspector general's audit report. The Aug. 13 report from the Treasury inspector general for tax administration comes on the heels of well-publicized reports of missing laptops from the Justice Department, the U.S. Customs Service and Defense Department. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0819/web-irs-08-19-02.asp - - - - - - - - Identity Theft Is Rife in Russia As Russia has long been dubbed a hub of tech fraud, credit-card holders have been justifiably wary about using their plastic there. Travelers have been warned that after charging a dinner to their card in Russia, hat number could be copied and used even after the owner left the country. The advice on avoiding fraud in the former Soviet Union includes only using credit cards in reputable locations and monitoring their balances. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54427,00.html - - - - - - - - Catching crooks with e-mail evidence Electronic messages often leave incriminating trail Not since the glory days of letter-writing, before the advent of the telephone, have people committed so much revealing stuff to written form as they do in the age of computers. All those e-mail messages and electronic files are a treasure trove of evidence for law enforcement officers, whether they are targeting terrorists, crooked CEOs or local drug dealers. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/08/16/email.evidence.ap/index.html - - - - - - - - NMCI cleared for classified net Pentagon officials give approval to Navy to connect users on SIPRNET to NMCI. The Navy Marine Corps Intranet has reached another critical milestone, with the Pentagon giving the Navy the go-ahead to connect about 40,000 users working on the Defense Department's classified network. "It absolutely is a significant milestone," said Capt. Chris Christopher, NMCI's deputy director of plans, policy and oversight. "We have a whole bunch of classified seats that we have to be able to roll out," which would have been impossible without getting this authority. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0819/news-nmci-08-19-02.asp - - - - - - - - Patch Posted for Apache Hole Workaround, update available for 'high risk' security flaw in widely-used Web server. A flaw has been discovered in the newest version of the Apache Web server that could allow an attacker to take control of a user's system, prompting the release Friday of an upgrade to the software. PivX Solutions, a network security consultancy in Newport Beach, California, disclosed the vulnerability Friday soon after an upgrade to Apache Version 2.0 that fixes the hole was posted. The hole could let an attacker remotely access all the files on an Apache 2.0 Web server, execute them, pass malicious code, and even shut down the system completely, said Geoff Shively, who goes by the title "chief hacking officer" at PivX Solutions. http://www.idg.net/ic_937269_1794_9-10000.html - - - - - - - - Debate Flares Over Microsoft's SSL Glitch Software giant says flaw would be difficult to exploit, but some security experts disagree. After the dust settled around last week's revelation of a security flaw that affects Microsoft's Web browser, network executives were left with another patch to apply to their Windows operating systems and a debate about the severity of the problem. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,104081,00.asp - - - - - - - - PGP Corp. acquires encryption product lines from Network Associates PGP Corp., a new company specializing in message and data storage security, said Monday it has acquired the commercial rights to the world's most popular software for encrypting e-mail. In addition to buying Network Associates Inc.'s ``Pretty Good Privacy'' product lines, PGP Corp. said it planned to update the technology. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3896253.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-954346.html - - - - - - - - BlackBerry to get S/MIME security BlackBerry handheld devices used in the military services can get a government-specific Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions protocol upgrade of their software under a National Security Agency contract with the devices' maker, Research In Motion Ltd. Mike Lazaridis, president of the Waterloo, Ontario, company, said Defense Department users of the BlackBerry 957, 5810 or 6710 handhelds would pay undisclosed licensing fees for the S/MIME public-key cryptography upgrades from NSA. He declined to give the value of the development contract. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/19711-1.html - - - - - - - - Robbie Williams wins cybersquatting case Robbie succeeds in ousting squatter who pointed a robbie williams address to an Oasis site. Pop star Robbie Williams has won his case to evict a "cybersquatter" from a contested website, international arbitrators have said in a ruling. Williams, who has worldwide album sales of more than 19 million, complained to the United Nations copyright agency that Howard Taylor of Southampton, southern England, had no right to www.robbiewilliams.info and was using the site in bad faith. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2120988,00.html - - - - - - - - Intrusion detection: Too much information Intrusion detection systems have been around for years, but lately companies have shown new interest in them as worm and virus attacks have risen, and as new cyber-attacks have been launched from overseas. But contrary to some enthusiastic claims, these systems aren't some new security panacea for the enterprise. In fact, as useful as they are, intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are very limited in what they can do, and much harder to incorporate than many would suggest. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2877487,00.html - - - - - - - - The secret life of a cyber hero The mystery hacker whose online infiltration has led to several arrests of suspected child predators including a California superior court judge-- was a 19-year-old loner who penetrated 3,000 computers around the world from his parents' basement in Langley, B.C. In all of this, the Canadian hacker has remained anonymous, even in police affidavits until now. Dubbed "Citizen Tipster" by police, Brad Willman, spent night after night writing a Trojan Horse program that gave him complete control over every computer that downloaded it. http://www.dimmockreport.com/hackerunmasked.htm - - - - - - - - Homeland security chiefs outline IT requirements IT leaders from the White House and intelligence agencies gave homeland security a push forward today by pooling their information-sharing plans. "It's about all of us figuring out how to share information to meet the needs of those combating terrorism," said Homeland Security Office CIO Steven I. Cooper at the Government Symposium on Information Sharing and Homeland Security. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/19712-1.html - - - - - - - - Justice sets deadline for fingerprint matching Starting Sept. 11, hundreds of foreign visitors who step off airplanes or arrive at U.S. border crossings will be directed to immigration inspectors, who will fingerprint and photograph them. While inspectors collect information on the visitors' backgrounds and their reasons for coming to the United States, computers will be comparing their fingerprints to tens of thousands of prints collected from foreign felons, terrorists and suspected terrorists. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0819/news-print-08-19-02.asp - - - - - - - - NASA plans to read terrorist's minds at airports Airport security screeners may soon try to read the minds of travelers to identify terrorists. Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have told Northwest Airlines security specialists that the agency is developing brain-monitoring devices in cooperation with a commercial firm, which it did not identify. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020817-704732.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26727.html - - - - - - - - 'Personal locators' help parents keep track of children Recent reports of kidnappings have sparked parents' fears and the imaginations of U.S. inventors, who have responded by offering "personal locators," a kind of electronic chaperone. One apparatus resembles a bracelet, another is like a beeper and one due out soon has a chip that may be implanted under the skin, systems that use mobile telephone technology and take advantage of the Global Positioning System to zero in on the wearer to within 65 feet. The record labels say Listen4ever.com offers thousands of copyright songs for illegal download - including recordings that have not yet been commercially released. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/502615p-4006771c.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.