[ISN] Conn. hacker indicted in attacks on San Diego auto site

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Wed Dec 19 2001 - 22:38:02 PST

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    http://www.boston.com/dailynews/352/region/Conn_hacker_indicted_in_attack:.shtml
    
    By Seth Hettena
    Associated Press
    12/18/2001 
    
    SAN DIEGO (AP) A Connecticut computer hacker has been indicted on
    federal charges for allegedly breaking into a Website for car
    enthusiasts and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage,
    authorities and company officials said Tuesday.
    
    Stephen L. Suplita III was indicted by a federal grand jury in San
    Diego on a charge of intentionally damaging computers at Enjoya. FBI
    agents arrested him Monday at his home in Manchester, Conn.
    
    The 21-year-old, who works at Alice Technologies in Holyoke, Mass.,
    has been released on bond and is scheduled to appear before a federal
    magistrate in San Diego next month.
    
    Messages left Tuesday at Suplita's home were not returned.
    
    Suplita hacked into Enjoya's Website between July and October of last
    year and left a trail that investigators traced back to computers
    linked to him, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Skerlos.
    
    ''He would be middle-of-the-road in terms of sophistication,'' Skerlos
    said.
    
    Fallbrook-based Enjoya was at the time the fourth-largest site for
    auto enthusiasts, but the attacks dealt a setback to that side of the
    business, said Richard Hudgins, the company's chief executive officer.
    
    ''Now we're not pushing that end of the business that hard,'' Hudgins
    said. ''The reason we're not pushing it hard is because of the
    hacking.''
    
    The attacks cost Enjoya four accounts worth $45,000 a month. The
    company also spent about $35,000 to fix the damage left by the hacker,
    who deleted key files and posted pornography in bulletin boards.
    
    Prosecutors declined to discuss why Suplita targeted Enjoya. Hudgins
    said the attacks might have something to do with a dispute over a
    magazine for Mazda Miata enthusiasts.
    
    The initial attack, which targeted a Miata discussion group on the
    Enjoya site, occurred in the midst of a controversy over Miata
    magazine's distribution rights and funding. At the time, Enjoya was
    the Web host for the magazine, but the company lost the account and
    three others due to the attacks, Hudgins said.
    
    Suplita is himself a car buff. He operates German Performance Group, a
    Website frequented by Connecticut-area Audi and Volkswagen
    enthusiasts. On the site, he carefully details each modification to
    his 1985 Volkswagen Cabriolet, down to the carbon fiber steering
    wheel.
    
    Enjoya traced the initial attack back to a Farmington, Conn.-based
    company that sells pharmaceuticals over the Web. Company officials
    told Hudgins they had fired the employee responsible, but declined to
    provide his name.
    
    In October 2000, a hacker broke into Enjoya's Website again in what
    Hudgins called the more damaging of the two attacks.
    
    Dialing in from a personal account, the hacker entered the site
    through a security loophole and downloaded a database of 115,000 names
    of site users, including about 45,000 credit card accounts, he said.  
    Enjoya had to notify every user who provided credit card numbers of
    the attack.
    
    
    
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