PC Invader Costs a Kentucky County $415,000 192
plover recommends a detailed account by Brian Krebs in the Washington Post's Security Fix column of a complex hack and con job resulting in the theft of $415,000 from Bullitt County, Kentucky. "The crooks were aided by more than two dozen co-conspirators in the United States, as well as a strain of malicious software capable of defeating online security measures put in place by many banks. ...the trouble began on June 22, when someone started making unauthorized wire transfers of $10,000 or less from the county's payroll to accounts belonging to at least 25 individuals around the country... [T]he criminals stole the money using a custom variant of a keystroke logging Trojan known as 'Zeus' (a.k.a. 'Zbot') that included two new features. The first is that stolen credentials are sent immediately via instant message to the attackers. But the second, more interesting feature of this malware... is that it creates a direct connection between the infected Microsoft Windows system and the attackers, allowing the bad guys to log in to the victim's bank account using the victim's own Internet connection."
Obligatory: (Score:5, Funny)
Identity Theft [youtube.com]
Re:your tax money at work (Score:2, Funny)
Convenient how governments and businesses continue to spend other people's money on insecure systems which allow even more money to vanish.
Microsoft Windows --because plausible deniability can come in mighty handy!
In other news, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) of California told all his debtors, that were expecting over $6 billion by the end of July, that California did have the money after all, the money was on the way, but currently stuck in Outlook. "I press da send key and it says "Netvurk Error" so as soon as that gets sorted out by the boys in the netvurk, da checks vill be on their vay. No need to lower the state's credit score. The money's just stuck in the outbox! Promise!"
Wow, blaming Microsoft CAN make life easier for governments...
Re:enh, the criminals we get these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:your tax money at work (Score:4, Funny)
Governatorese.
Re:Learn English (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, I am a pedantic Grammar Nazi, and I anticipate a great modding down of this comment, but my need to say this is worse than any addict's craving for his next fix. There are few things I hate more than redundant words. "Co-conspirator" is about as redundant as it gets. A conspiracy is a group of people. People conspire to do something like this, and you call those people conspirators. What happens in a hundred years when we forget that "co-conspirator" was being used this way? Do we start saying "co-co-conspirator"?
Of course! It should be co-nspirator, referring to multiple nspirators working together...
Lets fix the story: (Score:4, Funny)
When will they learn.
This is my Unix. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My Unix is my best friend.
It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My Unix, without me, is useless.
Without my Unix, I am useless. I must run my Unix true.
I must admin smarter than any hacker who is trying to own me. I must block them before they hack me. I will....
My Unix and myself know that what counts on this net is not the scripts we code, the size of our pipe, nor the data we send.
We know that it is the uptime that counts.
We will stay up...
My Unix is human, even as I, because it is my only life.
Thus, I will learn it as a brother.
I will report its bugs, share its strengths, upgrade parts, buy its accessories, open its ports and lobby for more bandwidth.
I will keep my Unix clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready.
We will become part of each other. We will...
Before Darl McBride I swear this creed. My Unix and myself are the defenders of the company I work for.
We are the masters of your script kids.
We are the saviors of your profit.
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no competition, but Profit.
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:3, Funny)
Then they click on either hotsexygal.jpg.exe or hotmanlystud.jpg.exe, depending.
Re:Windows TCO (Score:3, Funny)
Wow...that's quite something.
So you're saying that until they have both been broken into and their car radio's removed, there's no way to prove that it's easier to lock up a tank than it is to lock up a convertible with a cotton roof?