CRIME FW: [Cyber_threats] Daily News 12/27/02

GeorgeH@private

-----Original Message-----
From: NIPC Watch [mailto:nipc.watch@private] 
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2002 11:36 AM
To: cyber_threats@private
Subject: [Cyber_threats] Daily News 12/27/02

December 26, The Washington Times - Hacker threat seen as overdone.
A paper published recently by James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies concludes that the threat from hackers on the nation's
critical infrastructures is "overblown." Mr. Lewis makes a distinction
between computer networks in general and critical infrastructure. He says,
"a brief review suggests that while many computer networks remain very
vulnerable to attack, few critical infrastructures are equally vulnerable."
To bring the country down even briefly, terrorists would have to do serious
damage to critical systems, not just make nuisances of themselves. Lewis
makes several points. One is that there is a difference between being a pest
and causing strategically serious damage. Second, the American
infrastructure is much more robust than terror mongers would have us think.
Failure and disruption are already a routine fact of infrastructure life and
cause no more than inconvenience. "An assumption I have noticed in disaster
scenarios is that if a terrorist can disrupt a network's computers, the
network is destroyed. Actually, computers fail frequently, whereupon the
engineers reload from backups and life goes on." His conclusion: "The sky is
not falling, and cyber-weapons seem to be of limited value in attacking
national power or intimidating citizens." The CSIS study is available at
http://www.csis.org/tech/0211_lewis.pdf.
Source: http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021226-40779202.htm

December 26, MSNBC - Hacker turns to extortion.
A criminal trying to turn stolen personal data into cash has apparently
seized on a new, low-tech method - direct threats. A woman who had her
identity stolen in early December managed to foil most of the bank account
transfers attempted by the thief. So the criminal turned to personal
extortion instead, saying he would leave her alone if she paid $400. The
incident concerns online auction consumer advocate Rosalinda Baldwin, who
sees it as an escalation of the kinds of tactics hackers might use to turn
computer crime into cash. Extortion threats, which until now were normally
reserved for hackers trying to wring money out of companies that had
suffered security lapses, raise the stakes quite a bit for the criminal,
Baldwin says. The big question for Baldwin is whether or not the woman's
case is an aberration, or represents a new method computer criminals are
using the profit from criminal computer activity.
Source: http://www.msnbc.com/news/851175.asp?0si=-&cp1=1

      Virus: #1 Virus in USA: WORM KLEZ .H
      Source: http://wtc.trendmicro.com/wtc/wmap.html, Trend World Micro
Virus Tracking Center [Infected Computers, North America, Past 24 hours, #1
in United States]

      137(netbios-ns); 1433(ms-sql-s); 80 (http); 445 (microsoft-ds);
443(https); 53 (domain); 4662; 27374(asp); 21 (ftp); 139(netbios-ssn)
      Source: http://isc.incidents.org/top10.html; Internet Storm Center

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