[ISN] Expert: Ex-DHB head tried to hack security program

From: InfoSec News (alerts@private)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2008 - 00:25:07 PDT


http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-lidhb035711927jun03,0,4777299.story

By Robert Kessler
Newsday.com
June 3, 2008 

David Brooks, the former head of DHB Industries, apparently tried 
numerous times to break into the security program monitoring the 
computer he was allowed to use in home detention, according to a 
computer expert for the company guarding him.

The attempted unsuccessful break-ins occurred even after one of Brooks' 
attorneys promised the hacking would cease, Vincent Rakoccy, the 
computer expert for Vance International, testified yesterday at federal 
court in Central Islip.

Rakoccy is one of the witnesses that federal prosecutor Richard Lunger 
has called to block attempts by Brooks to have the conditions of his 
home detention eased or even ended. Rakoccy said that if the computer 
breaks-ins had succeeded, the hacker could defeat the security system 
installed on the computer and send messages undetected.

Brooks, 53, who is charged with looting his former company to support an 
over-the-top lifestyle, was released to home confinement on a number of 
conditions, including allowing the security company to monitor the 
computer and the single telephone in his luxurious Manhattan apartment.

Brooks' new team of attorneys, the third since he was arrested in 
October, have argued that the conditions of home detention are too 
onerous and that he is not a flight risk.

Brooks' attorneys have said that any violations of the home detention 
are minimal or the result of not understanding its conditions.

Mark Rufolo, one of the Brooks' attorneys, said there is no clear 
evidence that Brooks was the person who attempted to break into the 
computer.

Another witness, Nick Alleva, the manager of Brooks' security detail for 
Vance, said that the paralegal Brooks had hired is also his girlfriend 
and she has been at his Manhattan apartment past the midnight curfew.

Lunger has said that the situation at Brooks has been so lax that there 
at times has been "a party atmosphere until 4 a.m."

Alleva also said he had to fire one security guard after Brooks offered 
the guard's father-in-law a job.

Alleva also said he had confiscated two portable phones that Brooks had 
gotten in addition to the monitored desk phone. Brooks could have used 
the phones to make unmonitored phone calls, Alleva said.

The bail hearing is scheduled to continue today before U.S. District 
Judge Joanna Seybert.

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.



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