Hackershammer NHL fans

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/cs.cs-11-13-0021.html

By MIKE D'AMOUR
CALGARY SUN
Monday, November 13, 2000

Invaders from cyberspace have attacked a Canadian institution and,
temporarily at least, spoiled the fun for hundreds of thousands of
hockey fans.

One of the largest online hockey pools in the country,
www.officepools.com, has fallen victim to hackers from outside North
America, says the man who maintains the pool.

"Congratulations to the hacker or team of hackers (who've) ruined a
free service for 300,000 Canadians and many others around the world,"
Colin Briosi wrote to his subscribers over the weekend.

The site keeps track of player statistics for groups of fans who
"draft" teams at the start of the NHL season, the winner finishing
with the most points in the group.

With major companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo! also the recent
victims of hackers, the intrusion into the pool site should come as no
surprise, said a spokesman from a Calgary-based Internet security
company.

"The profile of a typical hacker is just a guy doing it for kicks,"
said Nino Plava of JAWS Technologies.

"And simply putting up a firewall isn't enough to stop them."

While the hockey pool attack really didn't put anybody out of cash,
that's not always the case, he said.

"It can be a very serious matter; the recent attacks on Yahoo! and
CNBC represented a $275 million US loss."

While Briosi is stunned by the attack on his site, he's not calling it
quits.

"Make no mistake folks, officepools is coming back and your pools are
100% intact -- they are on my laptop," he said in his notice.

He hopes to be back in business on Friday.


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