The $7 million hack (was re: [dgc.chat] Crowne Gold Update)

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 23:37:33 -0400
From: R. A. Hettinga <rah () shipwright com>
To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs () philodox com>, dcsb () ai mit edu,
     cryptography () wasabisystems com, cypherpunks () lne com
Subject: The $7 million hack (was re: [dgc.chat] Crowne Gold Update)


--- begin forwarded text


Status: RO
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 19:14:44 -0400
From: Sean Trainor <sean () crowne-gold com>
Subject: [dgc.chat] Crowne Gold Update
To: GoldMoney List Server <dgcchat () lists goldmoney com>
Organization: Crowne Gold
Reply-To: <dgcchat () lists goldmoney com>

To all for worldwide delivery.


Update: Crowne Gold

I wanted to brief the Gold community on the situation at Crowne Gold
and apologize for the delay in coming back on-line after recent
events. Crowne's staff is available and working even though servers
have not been accessible.  Here's a brief overview of what happened
and where we are:

Crowne Gold was attacked by hackers who attempted to hijack U.S. $7
million but failed.  They failed in part because members of the
digital gold community quickly offered assistance to thwart their
assault.  The level of cooperation was excellent.

Hackers managed to breach part of the Crowne Gold system due to a
key-logging program not recognized by the most up-to-date anti-virals
that came in attached to an email directed to a customer service
person.  The email was sent and received outside the normal encrypted
email system provided within the Crowne Gold program.  This was not a
frontal attack on the server but rather a carefully orchestrated
process that engaged direct email interaction between the hackers
(under alias) and a customer service person from their own
workstation.

By getting an administrator to respond directly to email, the hackers
gained access to a computer half a world away from the front-end
server and eventually captured administrative logons.  The primary
server system was not attacked until 'Carnival' was in full swing in
the Caribbean from whence Crowne Gold customer service functions are
provided.  When it was discovered that hackers had penetrated the
system, IP addresses were put under trace and the information gained
was submitted to Interpol.

Crowne elected to shutdown servers including front-end, back-up, and
double mirror-backup systems in order to ascertain the extent of the
penetration. Even the customer service network was shutdown until IT
personnel arrived on site and made changes to secure these normally
benign networks.

The hackers were both clever and to some extent lucky, on the other
hand, and as already pointed out, they failed to make even a single
dollar out of the entire exercise.  However, we have been led to
believe that they have attempted to blackmail other digital gold
providers based on their ability to force the temporary shutdown of
Crowne Gold.

So where are we now?

As you may be aware, Crowne Gold absorbed the former 3PGold whose
front-end server was located at Havenco at the Principality of
Sealand.  Havenco is physically secure but when the hackers accessed
Crowne Gold's equipment at the Havenco server farm, there was no one
on location at Havenco to support the several IT persons on the Crowne
Gold side who desperately needed on site assistance.  It took several
days for Havenco staff to respond to calls for assistance and then it
became immediately apparent that those in communication were nowhere
near the actual Havenco platform.  Hence Havenco is now a backup
server in the new server structure, at least until Havenco is able to
provide 24/7 support on-site.

Considerable changes have been made which required the server systems
to remain down longer than we would have liked but "safe rather than
sorry" has been pretty much the by-line of the entire event.  There
are a host of technology enhancements now taking place, both hardware
and software, but to say more than this would probably be unwise.

Again we apologize for the delay. We have been rudely educated. Yet as
things go it has been a dramatic wake-up call and probably the best
time possible for us to live through this experience.

To our customers, the digital gold community, and new users, we
apologize for this huge inconvenience. Rest assured we will be back
online soon and with a system that is better suited for our future
success together.

I can be reached at sean () crowne-gold com for further details regarding
our position.

Best regards,


Sean Trainor


Sean Trainor
Crowne-Gold The worlds easiest way to buy,
sell, hold and use gold as money.
WWW.Crowne-Gold.com
sean () crowne-gold com
727-418-4905



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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah () ibuc com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



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