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Online Crime Seen as Growing Threat to Business, Politics
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:40 PM
from the can't-we-all-just-play-some-wow dept.
from the can't-we-all-just-play-some-wow dept.
BobB passed us a link to a NetworkWorld article, exploring the ongoing realization in business circles of the dangers online criminals pose. The piece raises the possibility that criminal elements are gaining access to US research labs in an effort to ferret out corporate and governmental information. One institute referred to in the article states: "Economic espionage will be increasingly common as nation-states use cyber theft of data to gain economic advantage in multinational deals. The attack of choice involves targeted spear phishing with attachments, using well-researched social engineering methods to make the victim believe that an attachment comes from a trusted source." We just recently discussed possible hacker involvement in several municipal blackouts.
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CIA Claims Cyber Attackers Blacked Out Cities 280 comments
Dotnaught writes to tell us InformationWeek is reporting that the CIA admitted today that recent power outages in multiple cities outside the United States are the result of cyberattacks. "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
Firehose:Cyber espionage seen as growing threat to business by Anonymous Coward
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CyberLaw(TM) (Score:3, Funny)
The irony of anyonimity (Score:4, Interesting)
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Ironically this is a problem because .... (Score:2)
Not to mention the ease of leaking/bribing information today when combined with google, cam cell phones, etc.
Search engines? (Score:3, Interesting)
Who needs ECHELON anymore!
Fixed that for you (Score:3, Interesting)
Online Crime Facilitates Political, Business Growth.
Seriously, who profits from the stuff that makes the headlines? It sure isn't me; I'm only into grey-area piracy.
Define "Criminal" and "Crime" (Score:2, Insightful)
If that is not done, dangerous grounds are set for criminalizing millions, oh wait, the RIAA is already doing that...
Re:Good grief. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed good grief. I saw an article some time ago noting that some Southern California gangs were infiltrating girlfriends into various financial processing institutions to steal credit card information, banking info, and so on. Even into the DMV. So there's certainly low-level activity. At one company I worked at, a crook got a job in the accounting department and somehow stole all the HR data, and some of that was used to get credit cards. How long before serious organized crime runs multiple active efforts for this? And how many Web commerce sites do criminal background checks on IT personnel?
The reason that this doesn't happen to a greater extent is because people can do math. The problem is that you can't steal enough to be worth more than keeping the job. There are still some people who do it, but most people who can get jobs giving them access to that information realize that the (risk+effort)/reward ratio of stealing that information is a lot higher than the (risk+effort)/reward ratio of just being a good employee.
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define separation? (Score:2)
Do You See The Common Thread Here? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just like CIA Claims Cyber Attackers Blacked Out Cities [slashdot.org] Do you see the common thread here? Same SANS "expert", too. The guy who gave CIA props for their "disclosure". I remember when SANS was a good, technical security training and education outfit. Now they are on the Richard Clarke / Howard Schmidt CyberTerror disinformation campaign. I would doubt the spook "creds" - if you'd call 'em that - of Alan Paller. The worst theft and correlation of personal data is an ongoing effort by the state - with the telcos CA-CHING! Billing all the while. The crooks and Terra-ists are a joke in comparison. T'rists didn't "lose" several BILLION US dollars in small, unmarked bills in Iraq.
Who loses track of that kind of money? No one. Mistakes aren't made like that. Plans are. But we're supposed to be afraid of teh Internet now. Why? Cos' if we didn't have the 'net, we wouldn't know about that missing cash - or the validity of Operations MOCKINGBIRD, MKUltra, Northwoods, etc.
AirTran? This is a great outfit [msn.com]!
Parent
Re:Do You See The Common Thread Here? (Score:4, Funny)
Reform, as with a really nasty codebase, is a matter of simplification.
Which, as recent attempts to improve some sacred-cow entitlements shows, is a mother of a challenge.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact the "government" is not trying to carry out the law of the land - but rather to use law as an instrument of power. The Government would abolish private, reserve currency, were it "desperately attempting, against all odds, trying to sensibly enforce the bogglingly complex and conflicted laws of the land." The argument is disinge
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If justice as persons is not universal, it is a fiction.
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Sweet, sweet bumper sticker. ;)
Beyond the theological point, in reality, the difference between this theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory.
Who gets to define symbols like 'justice', 'universal', and 'fiction' is one powerful bloke.
Would that one could set an eternal champignon such as yourself up as POTUS, just to get your reaction to the negative feedback of even the simplest acts.
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http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/20/1747201 [slashdot.org]
"We invoke Executive Privilege to protect our PetroCo sponsors, and the globalists destroying the native industrial economy. BTW: breath smoke and like it!"
"The AP reports that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invoked executive privilege to justify withholding information in its response to a lawsuit. The state of California is challenging the agency's decision to block their attempt to curb the emissions from new cars and trucks. In response, the EPA has delivered documents requested by the Freedom of Information Act for the discovery phase of the lawsuit -- but the documents are heavily redacted. That is, the agency has revealed that it did spend many hours meeting to discuss the issue, but refuses to divulge the details or the outcomes of the meetings. Among the examples cited, 16 pages of a 43-page Powerpoint presentation are completely blank except for the page titles. An EPA spokesperson used language similar to other recent claims of executive privilege, citing 'the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting.'"
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Less is more.
The chief point I want to make is that there are copious smart, dedicated individuals in the government, who, though arguably misguided, are making a sincere best effort. The task of the electorate is to have the courage to vote in some wiser leadership.
It boggles the imagination (Score:4, Interesting)
I am more concerned about who they give physical access to the data / hardware are. All it takes is one vengeful employee and a thumb drive to lose very sensitive data. Worse, many companies that do lose data won't report the breach unless it involves a threat of lawsuit by irate customers. Then they will report it grudgingly and then only after days or even weeks and months have passed. Plenty of time for massive damage to be done.
Parent
More powerful organized crime (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I was extremely unsettled a few years ago when the spammer powers-that-be decided they wanted BlueSecurity shut down [washingtonpost.com], and a bunch of DNS servers, Tucows and 4 other hosting providers, and SixApart/LiveJournal/TypePad [wired.com] fell as collateral damage.
Is that not *scarier* for business? Let's see -- I'm free to conduct my business... as long as I don't step on any toes in the organized crime world. 'Cause if I do, they're shutting me down whenever they feel like it, and there's not a damned thing I (or the supposed "protection" of the law) can do about it.
And of course, no power, once it exists, goes unused for very long. I see more and more stories about botnets used for extortion -- which is a bit trickier to carry out, since it's tough to get paid without a money trail, and law enforcement has more experience dealing with that -- but it's just another example. If they just want to squelch my business, it's incredibly easy.
[Addendum: oh look... the article points to cyber espionage as #3 in the SANS institute's top 10 threats of 2008 [sans.org]; botnets are #2]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The flaming-feuer Bush, staff, congress, senate, CIA, FBI, NSA, TelCo, OilCo, InsureCo
The CIA just wants a domino-theory cold-war budget. What clueless Ge
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Insightful mods should pile on you - even as an AnonCow!
Re:Wikipedia user IP talk pages, questionable cont (Score:2)
They may do nothing, but a random person on the internet isn't going to be able to do much. An admin (as I noted, a real one) for the site where it's posted is normally the best person to handle it. If not, maybe they could