http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=271&fArticleId=3345357 By Lee Rondganger July 19, 2006 Johannesburg: Sophisticated crime syndicates could be behind the recent wave of internet crimes. As cyber crime becomes a lucrative business, organised crime bosses are looking increasingly at the internet to expand their criminal empires. This is according to American IT expert Richard Archdeacon, who was in South Africa recently. Archdeacon, a director at IT security company Symantec, said international trends showed that crime syndicates were increasingly focusing their attention on internet fraud. "What we are seeing is a Mr Big, who is a hardcore criminal employing skilled IT people who develop (hacking) codes that can be used against organisations," he said. Recently, hi-tech fraudsters have hacked into dozens of South African companies and made off with more than R30 million. In a single incident two weeks ago, a hacker bypassed a company's security system and transferred R3.6 million into a bogus account. No one has yet been arrested. Ian Melamed, an internet fraud investigator with Shaya InfoSec, said the internet security company had investigated several incidents in which large corporations' computer systems had been breached. He said in some cases fraudsters had installed key loggers on computers that held the user identification and passwords of staff responsible for paying suppliers. They followed the employees' key strokes, set up fake suppliers and invoices, and made payments without the companies knowing. Peter Gastrow, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies' organised crime department, said cyber crime was "a global phenomenon". Colin Thornton, director of Dial-A-Nerd, said 50% of the IT support company's work involved clearing PCs of spyware and adware. He warns of "wireless hacking" in which fraudsters sit outside wireless internet establishments and broadcast a wireless signal. An unsuspecting PC user will think he is logged into the local network when, instead, he is logged into the signal of the hacker, who will have unlimited access to his PC and all he types in. Copyright 2006 The Cape Times & Independent Online (Pty) Ltd. _________________________________ Attend the Black Hat Briefings and Training, Las Vegas July 29 - August 3 2,500+ international security experts from 40 nations, 10 tracks, no vendor pitches. www.blackhat.com
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