http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/112-05142005-489320.html By DAVID LEVINSKY Burlington County Times 5/14/2005 Away from the computer, investigators said Jasmine Singh looked and acted like most any other 17-year-old. In cyberspace, however, investigators said Singh was known both by his online aliases "Jatt" and "Pherk" and for his reputation as a hacker capable and willing to inflict havoc on computer systems of his or others choosing. The Middlesex County teenager pleaded guilty in state Superior Court this month to carrying out a series of online attacks between July and December 2004 that targeted a online clothing store based in Delran and other e-commerce businesses, according to the New Jersey Attorney General's Office. The attacks caused the Delran business and some 2,000 other online companies to suffer in excess of $1 million in damages and losses, investigators said. More troubling still, investigators say, is that the number of so-called cyber criminals like Singh are on the rise and their schemes are becoming more sophisticated. "It's becoming a growing problem, and we're taking it very seriously," said Special Agent Timothy Nestor, supervisor of cyber crime investigations at the FBI Field Office in Newark. Hackers are no longer just bored teenagers trying to sneak into computer networks for fun. There are now cyber mobs on the loose that actively try to steal identities or extort companies with the threat of malicious online attacks, he said. Law enforcement has had to adapt, Nestor said, noting that cyber crime is now the FBI's third highest priority behind counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence. "We're pouring lots and lots of resources into this," he said. The Singh case was an example of an online attack called a denial of service or DOS. During a DOS, an attacking computer program, called a "bot net," is used to flood the victim's computer network with large amounts of data or specific commands, causing it to overload and crash. According to a U.S. Department of Justice survey, DOS attacks like the one committed by Singh caused $26 million in losses last year, and Nestor said many hackers now use the threat of them to try to extort money or services. He said Singh's case was one of only a few instances where a hacker was "contracted" to conduct an attack against specific targets. According to investigators and court papers, Singh was hired over the Internet by 18-year-old Jason Arabo of Southfield, Mich., to conduct the DOS attacks against Delran-based Jersey-Joe.com and other online companies that sell retro sports apparel in competition with his own online businesses, www.customleader.com and www.jerseydomain.com. In return for conducting the attacks, Arabo, who used the computer aliases "cl.com" and "Jaytheplaya," paid Singh in sneakers, sports jerseys and jewelry, according to court papers. Officials from Jersey-Joe.com declined to comment on the attacks. FBI investigators were informed of the attacks by Jersey-Joe.com and, with assistance from the New Jersey State High Technology Crimes Unit, were able to trace the attacks to Singh and Arabo. Singh, who was tried as an adult, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 12 for second-degree computer theft in connection with the attacks. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. Arabo was charged in March with conspiring to transmit a program to damage a computer. He is currently free on a $50,000 bond, authorities said. Nestor said another problem cyber crime is "phishing" - an identity-theft ruse involving official-looking e-mails and Web sites that solicit personal information such as computer passwords, Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers and other forms of financial data from unsuspecting computer users. A report last year by Gartner Inc., an information technology market research firm, estimated phishing cost U.S. banks and credit card issuers about $1.2 billion in 2003. At least 2,870 active phishing sites were reported in March, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit organization of corporations and government agencies trying to eliminate cyber fraud and identity theft. Nestor said most phishing schemes now originate with organized crime syndicates that work and communicate almost solely via the Internet. Members of one such "cyber mob" that was broken up last year were charged with stealing and selling approximately 1.7 million credit card numbers that generated total losses in excess of $4 million. Just as cyber crooks are becoming more sophisticated, Nestor said federal investigators are also developing new methods to detect and trace their infringements. He said state, county, and local law enforcement agencies are also now getting involved in cyber crime crackdowns. _________________________________________ InfoSec News v2.0 - Coming Soon! http://www.infosecnews.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Mon May 16 2005 - 16:40:51 PDT