RE: Young cyber-terrorists hold top US firms to ransom in Transylvania

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Pete Simpson <pete.simpson () clearswift com>

> they would hack into the server of a big US company, access their
> protected

> database, download clients' personal files and then demand $50,000
> for not publishing the confidential documents on the internet.

A bunch of third world kids.  Geez, they much be something special -
'cyber terrorists'?  What kind of 'protected' database was that then?  
And how much had these "big US companies" spent on taking the most
elementary precautions?  ROTFL!


-----Original Message-----
From: InfoSec News [mailto:isn () c4i org]
Sent: 30 June 2003 08:45
To: isn () attrition org
Subject: [ISN] Young cyber-terrorists hold top US firms to ransom in
Transylvania


Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk () c4i org>

http://www.sundayherald.com/34961

Gabriel Ronay
29 June 2003

Several top American companies have been blackmailed to the tune of 
$50,000 a head by Romanian hackers practising 'cyber- terrorism' from 
the backwoods of Transylvania. Astonishingly, the cyber wizards who 
penetrated the databases of security-conscious corporate America 
turned out to be a group of Romanian high school drop-outs, work-shy 
provincials and students manquZ.

Romania is not exactly in the vanguard of the high-tech revolution and 
the medieval Transylvanian town of Sibiu, the hub of the daring 
hacking operation, has hitherto been better known as the birthplace of 
Vlad Dracula the Impaler than the new Silicon Valley of the Balkans.

The modus operandi of the Sibiu 'cyber terrorists,' as they have been 
nicknamed by the FBI, was simple enough: they would hack into the 
server of a big US company, access their protected database, download 
clients' personal files and then demand $50,000 for not publishing the 
confidential documents on the internet.

The young hackers' work paid so well that last April the targeted US 
companies sought the help of the FBI to get on the trail of the 
blackmailers. The ripped-off companies have not been named for fear of 
alarming their clients.

[...]



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