Online Security, a global provider of computer forensics and information technology risk mitigation since 1997   Original Source:    http://www.newsbits.net March 1, 2004 - News Author:  Deputy Ron Levine NewsBits for March 1, 2004 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Mossad website 'hacker' walks free An Israeli man was cleared yesterday of trying to hack into a website run by Israel's secret service, Mossad. Jerusalem Magistrate's Court acquitted Avi Mizrahi of computer crime offences after judges ruled his motives for checking the security of a Mossad recruitment site were innocent. Presiding judge Abraham Tennenbaum even praised Mizrahi for "acting in the public good" in trying to access the security level of the site, Ha'aretz reports. www.theregister.co.uk ------------------------------ 10 000 child porn photos = 50 years of jail American step father, 49 years old resident of Pennsylvania, US, Norman McDonald, has been raping Ukrainian girl for two years. It began after his fiancee had moved with 3 years old girl to the US. Mother turned to police when she had occasionally caught her daughter in bed with her husband. It turned out that all his sexual experiments American recorded on video, records will be the main evidence in the court. www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ Russian porn dealer arrested Tula is well known far away from Russian borders due to its famous spice-cakes and arms. Though it became famous in view of one young man detained by Tula Regional Police Department for creating website in the Internet on distributing child porn. However he cheated even with his clients: he took money and didn't send anything. www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ Police bust Internet child porn networks Police seized computers, laptops, videos and other material containing images of child abuse and several suspects were being investigated, Europol said, but declined to give details of how many people had been detained or how many networks were broken. msnbc.msn.com ------------------------------ Seller of fake artwork again upsets eBay Kenneth Walton, who pleaded guilty in 2001 to federal wire and mail fraud charges for trying to sell a fake Richard Diebenkorn painting on eBay for $135,000 in a shill-bidding scam, has run afoul of eBay again. This time, though, it was not the authorities that did him in. It was his mom, albeit unintentionally. news.com ------------------------------ Fistful of Bagles shoot up the Net Five new versions of the Bagle worm escaped on to the Web at the weekend. Just one, the medium-risk Bagle-C, has spread widely. The new bagles - C through to G - have minor differences only. It seems that unknown virus writers are trying different tactics to fool users into spreading their malicious code. All seven Bagle variants affect Windows PCs only. www.theregister.co.uk news.zdnet.co.uk computerworld.com ------------------------------ Many computers unprepared to meet Mydoom.F www.usatoday.com ------------------------------ Netsky-D makes your PC go beep, beep, beep An email worm posing as a PIF file is spreading rapidly across the Net today. The Netsky-D worm is clogging in-boxes already sagging under the collective load of five new variants of the Bagle worm and sundry other irritants. www.theregister.co.uk www.reuters.com news.zdnet.co.uk zdnet.com news.com msnbc.msn.com www.cnn.com www.wired.com ------------------------------ Automated kits fuel virus epidemic www.vnunet.com ------------------------------ Court Says Net-Spread DVD Code Isn't Trade Secret A computer code that unlocked encrypted DVDs was so widely distributed on the Internet that it did not qualify as a trade secret, a California appeals court has ruled. The DVD Copy Control Assn., which licenses encryption software for the movie, computer and consumer electronics industries, sought an injunction in 1999 to block programmer Andrew Bunner from republishing the code on the Internet. (LA Times article, free registration required) www.latimes.com ------------------------------ US court: Reverse engineering is 'presumptively legal' news.zdnet.co.uk ------------------------------ India holds training for cyber policemen Special trainings for cyber policemen are held in India by Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies in the building of the Jawaharlal Neru Stadium. Training program is assigned for officers of special departments on fighting computer crimes and includes courses of investigating cybercrimes and special expert examination in such cases. www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ Law may boost info security Information security should lead the list of considerations for new investments, and changing the law to require it may help agencies improve systems, a House subcommittee staff director said today. www.fcw.com www.govexec.com ------------------------------ Text messages, camera phones used to cheat in classrooms Teachers thought they had seen it all when it comes to cheating. A tiny cheat sheet tucked up a sleeve. A math formula saved on a calculator. An essay pulled off the Internet. But now sneaky students have found a new high-tech way to ask friends covertly for help on tests. Students can send silent questions and answers to one another right under teachers' noses on cell phones with built-in cameras and text messaging. www.mercurynews.com ------------------------------ Interest in police department's forensic video unit rising Following a pair of high-profile crimes solved partly through video cameras, a pair of Allegheny County police detectives anticipate they'll more frequently be asked, "Who's this guy on the tape?" www.usatoday.com ------------------------------ Millions at Risk from Cyber 'Phishing' Gangs Millions of online bank customers could be in danger from a growing new Internet scam known as “phishing”. Police have warned that three financial institutions have already lost £20 million each to Internet crime in the past year and the number of “phishing” cases known to police has increased more than 600% over the same period. news.scotsman.com ------------------------------ 419ers adopt Shakespearean line of attack It's good to see that the lads from Lagos are still hard at work, despite the best efforts of police, spam-baiters and ourselves to cage/enrage/lambaste the advance fee fraudsters into submission. www.theregister.co.uk ------------------------------ On guard against hackers They lurk around the industry they helped create. They are hackers, spammers, virus writers and other Internet troublemakers. This week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, which ended Friday, brought together some 10,000 computer security experts. But the specter of a determined few with nasty motives was also palpable. www.siliconvalley.com ------------------------------ Windows leak dangers 'exaggerated' www.theregister.co.uk ------------------------------ Thomson Offering Lock for MP3 Files The new format can limit duplication of songs. But compatibility issues and competition pose challenges. When German audio engineers developed the MP3 format in the early 1990s, they unwittingly created the currency of online music piracy — song files that could be copied freely and downloaded swiftly. (LA Times article, free registration required) www.latimes.com ------------------------------ German revolt against RFID Metro Group has abandoned a trial of RFID radio tags, after protests by digital rights activists. The German retail giant has tested RFID tags at its Extra Store in Rheinberg, near Duisburg for nearly a year. The chips, hidden underneath price tags for cream cheese, shampoo and razor blades, were read over the air using radio waves, without physical contact and unnoticed by customers. www.theregister.co.uk ------------------------------ Jamming Tags Block RFID Scanners www.wired.com ------------------------------ Sidebar: Sensitive Snooping computerworld.com ------------------------------ Can't Hide Your Prying Eyes computerworld.com ------------------------------ Tracking the Drivers computerworld.com ------------------------------ For Windows Users, 'Browser Hijacking' Is Only the Latest Threat The ongoing Internet-security freakout for anybody using Windows keeps getting worse. Every other week yet another part of the online world gets a warning label slapped on it -- downloads, e-mail attachments, instant-messaging file transfers and now Web pages themselves. www.washingtonpost.com ------------------------------ What If Microsoft Got Security Right? I'm not even going to suggest that Linux is less secure, but if the exposure is people and people are gullible, then security at a product level might only make you feel more secure. You might not actually be more secure. So, as far as I can tell, Microsoft is the only large firm really dealing with behavioral issues. www.technewsworld.com ------------------------------ Microsoft enlists developers in security push zdnet.com ------------------------------ Is authentication the answer to spam? With a simple adjustment in your e-mail software, you can pretend to be anyone. You can send messages marked as coming from BillGates@microsoft.com. msnbc.msn.com ------------------------------ Spam's irritating cousin, spim, on the loose www.usatoday.com ------------------------------ Is password-lending a cybercrime? A judge's wrongheaded interpretation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act illustrates the problems of allowing civil enforcement of a criminal law, writes SecurityFocus columnist Mark Rasch. www.theregister.co.uk ------------------------------ Security: the CIO's biggest headache Security, upgrades and modernisation, and budgets were the top three issues faced by Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in 2003, writes Bloor Research chief analyst Tony Lock. www.theregister.co.uk ------------------------------ Security warning on internet telephony australianit.news.com.au ------------------------------ Plastic criminality part 3 Fraudsters often use devices being attached to ATM get data on cards. Group of swindlers showed up in due time in Moscow. They put special attachment at keyboard looking like original ATM buttons. Card owner withdrew money without any problems, at that forged keyboard stored all pushed buttons, including Pin code. www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ "Plastic" criminality part2 www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ "Plastic" criminality www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ Technology of counteraction to falsification of credit cards www.crime-research.org ------------------------------ How to keep a secret It's never been easier to be a spy. Students of the spooky arts may think fondly of the first Elizabethan era, when fantastic figures like Sir Francis Walsingham ran rings of agents across Europe and decrypted messages hidden in barrels of beer, but back then it was diabolically easy to keep a secret. You picked your trusted confidant, walked out of earshot of anyone else and plotted away to your black heart's content. Then some blighter discovered electricity and everything changed. zdnet.com ------------------------------ S.F.: If You're Asked, Don't Tell Following a nationwide backlash by municipalities against the USA Patriot Act, San Francisco will present voters with a ballot measure that proponents say will protect city residents from federal snooping. Proposition E, which is slated for vote in California's March 2 primary election, would authorize the Board of Supervisors -- instead of individual city workers -- to respond to federal requests for San Franciscans' private records. www.wired.com ------------------------------ E-Mail Blast Seeks Data on Bush Plans For Public Lands An advocacy group that opposes President Bush's environmental policies e-mailed nearly 60,000 Interior Department employees Thursday to seek help in identifying White House initiatives that could threaten national parks and wilderness areas. www.washingtonpost.com *********************************************************** Computer Forensics Training - Online. An intense, 150 hour, instructor lead program that teaches you computer forensics and helps prepare you for the Certified Computer Examiner exam. 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