Philippines cracks hacker ring

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/tech/RTGAM/20020909/gthack/Technology/techBN/

Reuters News Agency
September 9, 2002

Manila - Philippines police said on Monday they had cracked a
100-million peso ($3-million Cdn.) computer hacking ring that had
gained access to telephone company lines and sold off cheap phone
calls.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to show she is tough on crime,
paraded three arrested men, including two Jordanian brothers, before
the media at the national police headquarters in Manila.

The arrests were made under the Philippines' E-Commerce Law, which was
enacted after a Filipino allegedly released the so-called "Love Bug"  
computer virus in 2000.

That virus caused damage estimated at $10-billion (U.S.) as it shut
down computer systems throughout the world, including at the Pentagon
and the British Parliament, but the Philippines had no computer crime
law under which it could make an arrest.

The hacking ring was cracked after the country's main phone company,
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., asked for help to stop the
scam, police said.

The hackers tapped into computers controlling long-distance phone
calls, then sold calls to their clients at prices around half the
normal rate.

Immigration officials said two of those arrested were Jordanians and
the third was a Filipino.

If convicted, those arrested face up to six years in jail and a fine
of up to 100,000 pesos ($3,000 Cdn.) each.

Ms. Arroyo has been leading a high-profile anticrime campaign that has
seen her regularly appear in newspaper photographs with arrested
suspects.



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