Hack a Day » crime

Remote access programs are good security for laptops

Kimberly Lau — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:08:30 +0000

Don’t be [Gabriel Meija], the criminal pictured above. He stole [Jose Caceres]‘ laptop, but didn’t realize that [Caceres] had installed a remote access program to track the activity on the laptop. Although the first few days were frustrating, as [Meija] didn’t seem to be using the laptop for anything but porn, [Caceres]‘ luck turned when he noticed that an address was being typed in. [Caceres] turned the information over to police, who were able to find [Meija] and charge him with fourth-degree grand larceny. It’s not the first time that tech-savvy consumers have relied on remote access programs to capture the criminals who’ve stolen their computer equipment, and it certainly won’t be the last, as the technology becomes more readily available to consumers.

[via Obscure Store and Reading Room]

Posted in news, security hacks

Possible entrapment scenario in hacking case

Kimberly Lau — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:03:00 +0000

[Brian Salcedo] made headlines a few years ago as a hacker who attempted to break into Lowe’s corporate network. He is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence, one of the longest sentences for a computer hacking offense. Recent events surrounding a different hacking case have revealed that the buyer he worked for, [Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez], was a Secret Service informant. [Salcedo] claims that were it not for [Gonzalez]‘s threats, he would not have committed the hacking offense. While the Secret Service may not have even been aware of [Gonzalez's] activity with other hackers, [Salcedo] could make a case of entrapment by arguing that [Gonzalez] threatened him as a government agent in order to make him plant the sniffer in Lowe’s network.

Hacker sentenced for stalking internet celebrity

Kimberly Lau — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:50:00 +0000

[Jeffrey Robert Weinberg] has been sentenced to 2 years in state prison for a single act of computer intrusion. He had already served time in federal prison for hacking into Lexis-Nexis. Weinberg was caught through his cyberstalking – he went after an Internet celebrity. [Amor Hilton] was a MySpace user with a popular show on Stickam. Hilton found herself locked out of her MySpace account, and her cellphone account disconnected. She alleged that he demanded phone sex and nude photos of her. [Hilton] worked with the police to identify the hacker using a photo that he sent. After [Weinberg] completes his sentence in state prison, he will have to face repercussions for violation of his federal probation, which came with severe restrictions on his computer usage.

Botnet attack via P2P software

Juan Aguilar — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:30:00 +0000

P2P networks have long been a legal gray area, used for various spam schemes, illegal filesharing, and lots and lots of adware. Last year, though, the first botnet created by a worm distributed via P2P software surfaced, the work of 19-year-old [Jason Michael Milmont] of Cheyenne, Wyoming, who distributed his Nugache Worm by offering free downloads of the P2P app Limewire with the worm embedded. He later began distributing it using bogus MySpace and Photobucket links shared via chats on AOL Instant Messenger. The strategy proved effective, as the botnet peaked with around 15,000 bots. [Milmont] has plead guilty to the charges against him. Per his plea agreement, he will pay $73,000 in restitution and may serve up to five years in prison.