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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StockDung who wrote (68037)	3/8/2001 5:26:51 PM
From: Tim Luke	Respond to of 122087

FBI Warns Businesses About Internet Extortion Schemes By Lee Gomes and Ted Bridis Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal SAN FRANCISCO -- The FBI and other law enforcement officers are warning businesses about an ongoing series of Internet extortion schemes operating from the former Soviet Union that have so far broken into the computers of more than 40 businesses in 20 states, stealing information about millions of credit cards as well as other consumer data. But independent security experts, while describing the problem as a real one, privately questioned whether the attacks being described were new ones. The hackers are believed to live in Russia and the Ukraine, and are attacking companies with operations on the Web, including many banks, say several people with knowledge of the investigation. Once information from the computers is stolen, the businesses owning the machines are blackmailed into paying money to keep the attacks from happening again. Some companies are said to have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the hackers, often in the guise of hiring them as security consultants. In some cases, investigators believe that even after payments are made, credit card data was sold to organized crime figures. Law enforcement officials have long described this sort of Internet extortion as a widespread problem in Russia and other former Soviet republics, which have an abundance of technically-savvy computer users. And some of the attacks, such as one involving CD Universe, a music retailing Web site, happened more than a year ago, and have previously been publicized. The attacks take advantage of several well-known vulnerabilities in the software supplied by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). Software "patches" that plug the security loopholes are readily available, and in some cases have been for years. Authorities say they are publicizing the attacks to prompt companies to make sure their computer systems were up to date. Programs to repair the holes, and to determine if a computer has been broken into, are available from the Center for Internet Security. The attacks have been under way for several months, with the criminals methodically looking through machines connected to the Internet in the hopes of finding ones not up to date with the latest software patches. Vulnerable machines are then probed for sensitive data. If it's obtained, the company owing the computers are sent e-mails or faxes. Companies that fail to respond are sent increasingly threatening notes. The attacks involve machines connected to the Internet, which excludes the mainframe computers that banks do their traditional business on. However, the Internet operations of many banks are sometimes run off of online systems.