RE: [ISN] Young cyber-terrorists hold top US firms to ransom in Transylvania

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 04:10:05 PDT

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    Forwarded from: Pete Simpson <pete.simpsonat_private>
    
    > they would hack into the server of a big US company, access their
    > protected
    
    > database, download clients' personal files and then demand $50,000
    > for not publishing the confidential documents on the internet.
    
    A bunch of third world kids.  Geez, they much be something special -
    'cyber terrorists'?  What kind of 'protected' database was that then?  
    And how much had these "big US companies" spent on taking the most
    elementary precautions?  ROTFL!
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: InfoSec News [mailto:isnat_private]
    Sent: 30 June 2003 08:45
    To: isnat_private
    Subject: [ISN] Young cyber-terrorists hold top US firms to ransom in
    Transylvania
    
    
    Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private>
    
    http://www.sundayherald.com/34961
    
    Gabriel Ronay
    29 June 2003
    
    Several top American companies have been blackmailed to the tune of 
    $50,000 a head by Romanian hackers practising 'cyber- terrorism' from 
    the backwoods of Transylvania. Astonishingly, the cyber wizards who 
    penetrated the databases of security-conscious corporate America 
    turned out to be a group of Romanian high school drop-outs, work-shy 
    provincials and students manquZ.
    
    Romania is not exactly in the vanguard of the high-tech revolution and 
    the medieval Transylvanian town of Sibiu, the hub of the daring 
    hacking operation, has hitherto been better known as the birthplace of 
    Vlad Dracula the Impaler than the new Silicon Valley of the Balkans.
    
    The modus operandi of the Sibiu 'cyber terrorists,' as they have been 
    nicknamed by the FBI, was simple enough: they would hack into the 
    server of a big US company, access their protected database, download 
    clients' personal files and then demand $50,000 for not publishing the 
    confidential documents on the internet.
    
    The young hackers' work paid so well that last April the targeted US 
    companies sought the help of the FBI to get on the trail of the 
    blackmailers. The ripped-off companies have not been named for fear of 
    alarming their clients.
    
    [...]
    
    
    
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