(MSNBC, 9 March) According to MSNBC, a group of Internet activists is
set to release its own software tool designed to cripple Web sites. The
distributed denial of service attack tool to be released by the
"Electrohippies" group will allow thousands of protesters to aim their
computers at a single Web site, effectively jamming a company's Internet
presence. But the attacks will be fundamentally different from last
month's crippling of Yahoo, eBay and other major sites. The victims will
be warned before the attacks, according to the tool's authors. Described
as a virtual sit-in, online protesters will gather via modems and work
together to disrupt a company with policies they want to protest. The
group reportedly has yet to decide on its exact victim, but the protest
will be focused on genetic modification of food crops. Last November,
the Electrohippies staged a protest of the World Trade Organization
using this technique.
(Boston Globe, 9 March) The Boston Globe is reporting that a hacker
broke into an MIT computer system and altered the grades of 22 students
in a biology class, institute officials said yesterday. The grades of 20
of 120 students in an undergraduate cell biology class were reportedly
lowered, while two others were given higher marks. The professor and
teaching
assistants for the class declined to talk about the investigation, but
an institute spokesman said officials have identified someone from
outside the class as the culprit. The spokesman would not say whether
the person was a student at MIT.
(Internet News, 9 March) Curador, the cracker who has stolen credit
cards from at least eight
small e-commerce sites and then posted them online, is growing more
brazen by the minute. In
an interview with InternetNews Wednesday, Curador claimed he has hit
five new Web firms and
will soon publish hundreds more stolen credit card numbers at a new
site, which he said he
registered using one of the stolen cards. "Law enforcement couldn't hack
their way out of a wet
paper bag. They're people who get paid to do nothing. They never
actually catch anybody," said
Curador. After hitting his first on 31 January, Curador has so far
eluded arrest.
(CNET News, 9 March) Microsoft today confirmed a security hole in
Windows 95 and Windows 98 that could result in problems for Web surfers
or users of particular email programs. The hole could also potentially
be used to create more significant system damage, experts say. The
vulnerability, which was just discovered, works by forcing a computer to
process a certain
sequence of characters. A user could encounter this situation in several
instances: when
downloading a Web page that has been embedded with malicious code, when
opening an email
message on Hotmail or some other Web-based email service or simply by
typing the code at a
DOS prompt. When a computer encounters the sequence of characters and
tries to process them,
it crashes. Microsoft confirmed the vulnerability, which is a type of
"Trojan horse," and said it is working on a patch.
(Scripps Howard News Service, 9 March) June Neptune, a Florida
businesswoman said that a computer hacker cost her business $500,000,
eventually forcing her to shut down operations and lay off 100
employees. Neptune told the Senate Small Business Committee that
"Technology is changing everyday and small businesses just cannot raise
the money to install screening systems to keep out hackers ." Business
groups testified that computer hacking incidents more than doubled in
the last year and are "shaking the foundations" of young Internet firms.
(Newsbytes, 10 March) A long-anticipated White House document that
recommends broader powers for law enforcers in monitoring Internet
traffic drew mixed responses, earning praise from some in the high-tech
industry, while drawing sharp criticism from civil libertarians.
"Anonymity on the Internet is not a thorny issue; it is a Constitutional
right," the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a letter to Attorney
General Janet Reno today. The ACLU was responding to a report, unveiled
earlier today, entitled "The Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of
Unlawful Conduct Involving the Use of the Internet." The report - a
product of the President's Working Group on Unlawful Conduct on the
Internet - contends that law enforcers need new "tools" for combating
the rising tide of electronic crime.
(U) (Federal Computer Week, 9 March) The best way to secure the
Internet is to make the Internet itself stronger, a member of the
President's Information Technology Advisory Committee testified
Wednesday before Congress. Many security problems faced by agencies and
industry stem from administrators not paying close enough attention to
their systems, Raj Reddy, co-chairman of the PITAC and a computer
science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, testified before the
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee's Communications
Subcommittee. "Rather than leaving the Internet vulnerable because a
few persons or organizations are careless or reckless, we should develop
and information infrastructure that is not dependent on voluntary
compliance with security practices and policies," Reddy said, suggesting
the creation of a "self-healing" network.
(JiJi Press - FBIS, 10 March) JiJi Press has been informed by sources
that the Japanese government plans to set up a task force of experts
within this month to strengthen measures against attacks by computer
hackers. The task force against cyber terrorism will map out guidelines
to help government agencies formulate security policies in operating
computer
networks. The task force will compromise more than 10 members,
including company officials
related to information security, finance, energy and transportation, as
well as scholars.
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