Get Out of Dodge!

Source: The Sunday Herald

AN INTERNATIONAL criminal gang has pulled off one of the most audacious cyber-crimes ever and stolen the identities of an estimated eight million people in a hacking raid that could ultimately net more than £2.8billion in illegal funds.

A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that late on Thursday night, a previously unknown Indian hacker successfully breached the IT defences of the Best Western Hotel group’s online booking system and sold details of how to access it through an underground network operated by the Russian mafia.

It is a move that has been dubbed the greatest cyber-heist in world history. The attack scooped up the personal details of every single customer that has booked into one of Best Western’s 1312 continental hotels since 2007.

Amounting to a complete identity-theft kit, the stolen data includes a range of private information including home addresses, telephone numbers, credit card details and place of employment.

“They’ve pulled off a masterstroke here,” said security expert Jacques Erasmus, an ex-hacker who now works for the computer security firm Prevx. “There are plenty of hacked company databases for sale online but the sheer volume and quality of the information that’s been stolen in the Best Western raid makes this particularly rare. The Russian gangs who specialise in this kind of work will have been exploiting the information from the moment it became available late on Thursday night. In the wrong hands, there’s enough data there to spark a major European crime wave.”

Although the security breach was closed on Friday after Best Western was alerted by the Sunday Herald, experts fear that information seized in the raid is already being used to pursue a range of criminal strategies.

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Read the full story at: Popular Mechanics

What are red teams, you ask? They’re sort of like the special forces units of the security industry—highly skilled teams that clients pay to break into the clients’ own networks. These guys find the security flaws so they can be patched before someone with more nefarious plans sneaks in. The NSA has made plenty of news in the past few years for warrantless wiretapping and massive data-mining enterprises of questionable legality, but one of the agency’s primary functions is the protection of the military’s secure computer networks, and that’s where the red team comes in.

In exchange for the interview, I agreed not to publish my source’s name. When I asked what I should call him, the best option I was offered was: “An official within the National Security Agency’s Vulnerability Analysis and Operations Group.” So I’m just going to call him OWNSAVAOG for short. And I’ll try not to reveal any identifying details about the man whom I interviewed, except to say that his disciplined, military demeanor shares little in common with the popular conception of the flippant geek-for-hire familiar to all too many movie fans (Dr. McKittrick in WarGames) and code geeks (n00b script-kiddie h4×0r in leetspeak).

So what exactly does the NSA’s red team actually do? They provide “adversarial network services to the rest of the DOD,” says OWNSAVAOG. That means that “customers” from the many branches of the Pentagon invite OWNSAVAOG and his crew to act like our country’s shadowy enemies (from the living-in-his-mother’s-basement code tinkerer to a “well-funded hacker who has time and money to invest in the effort”), attempting to slip in unannounced and gain unauthorized access.

From: Epoch Times

The hearing for a Maryland woman accused of acting as an unregistered agent for the Iraqi Intelligence Service began yesterday at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Ex-journalist and self-proclaimed anti-war activist Susan Lindauer, 48, was arrested in 2004 on charges of accepting $10,000 from the Iraqi government in 2002, according to the Center for Counterintelligence Web site.

A reporter and a professor who have known Lindauer since the early 90s testified at Lindauer’s hearing today. They reported that she was close to individuals in intelligence circles.

She allegedly met with an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a representative of the Libyan intelligence service and was seeking to support resistance groups fighting U.S. forces in post-war Iraq, according to the Center for Counterintelligence Web site.

Lindauer worked as a press secretary for several Democratic senators and representatives before she became a reporter.

The Associated Press

A former Boeing Co. scientist who specialized in anti-missile systems plans to plead guilty to unlawfully retaining national defense information, his attorney said.

Abraham Lesnik, 68, was charged Monday, nearly two years after a federal investigation into whether he misused classified information, prosecutors said. He could receive up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Lesnik appeared in court, where U.S. Magistrate judge set his bail at $150,000, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Zweiback said.

A trial date was set for Aug. 12, but Lesnik’s attorney, Marc Harris, said his client will plead guilty.

U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Thom Mrozek said most of the case was under seal. A charging document alleges Lesnik had unauthorized possession of 10 classified documents and one “top secret” document “pertaining to national defense satellite threat mitigation.”

The FBI searched Lesnik’s San Fernando Valley home three times in 2006 and confiscated a laptop computer.

Lesnik’s Department of Defense security clearance was listed as “Secret, Special Access” until he was terminated by Boeing in 2007, according to a court document he filed to prevent Boeing officials from examining his computer. He argued it contained personal financial, medical and family information.

Calls to Boeing after business hours were not returned Monday.

Via: FT.com

Prosecutors raided the Bonn headquarters of Deutsche Telekom on Thursday as part of a probe into possible criminal actions by former executives during an alleged spying campaign targeting directors and journalists three years ago.

Public prosecutor Friedrich Apostel said former chairman Klaus Zumwinkel, ex-chief executive Kai-Uwe Ricke, and six employees past and present were “within the scope” of an inquiry to establish if charges will follow.

Mr Ricke, chief executive until late 2006, could not be reached. But he has in recent days repeatedly denied any knowledge of wrongdoing in various German media. He has admitted leaks were an issue for management.

Mr Zumwinkel’s spokesman on Thursday referred to a statement issued on Tuesday in which Mr Zumwinkel, chairman until the start of this year, said that “any alleged data gathering happened without [his] agreement”.