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p2pnet news view | Crime:- Danged online 60-year-olds! Ye jest can’t trust ‘em!
Bruce Mengler (Yup, 60) hacked a Maserati database holding data on customers who’d taken trial drives, says the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Mengler, “downloaded the customers’ information and then threatened via e-mail to publicize the security breach unless the company paid him,” says the indictment.
Maybe he figured because Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA routinely gets away with extortion, it’d work for him as well.
Anyhow, “Officials said the threats were made in a series of emails sent from ’sol.beach@gmail.com’,” the story states, going on officials said Mengler included the names, addresses and identification numbers of four San Diego-area customers.
He was released on bail after police questioned him about the attack, adds the Union-Tribune.
Backup plan: paper and pencils
Not only but also, “It was 9:30 on the morning of March 4, 2002, and something was terribly wrong at the offices of PaineWebber UBS,” says Tynan on Tech, going on
Computers in branches all over the country began showing disc errors. A logic bomb buried deep within the machines had wiped their hard drives clean, preventing 17,000 brokers from making trades.
“It was six months after 9/11,” says Keith Jones, co-principal of Jones Dykstra and Associates, a computer forensics and expert witness firm. “Back then if anyone so much as sneezed, you thought ‘terrorism.’”
The IT staff located the backups and restored the first batch of machines.
They got wiped again. The logic bomb had propagated to the backups.
The brokers gave up on their computers and went to their other backup plan: paper and pencils. UBS tech staff ultimately figured out how to bypass the bomb and restore computer access, but it was weeks before the company was back to normal. More than $3 million in damage had been done.
The culprit?
Sysadmin Roger Duronio.
Yup, he’s 60.
“Unhappy about not receiving compensation he’d been promised, Duronio planted the logic bomb on more than 1,000 Unix machines throughout the company,” says Tynan, adding, “He then shorted the company’s stock, hoping to capitalize financially as PaineWebber’s share price dropped. Instead he was convicted of computer sabotage and securities fraud.”
Duronio was jailed for eight years.
San Diego Union-Tribune - Solana Beach man arraigned computer hacking-extortion case, September 22, 2008
Tynan on Tech - Angry IT workers: A ticking time bomb?, September 23, 2008
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September 24th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
“Maybe he figured because Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA routinely gets away with extortion, it’d work for him as well.”
hahaha heck why not!
September 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Danged online 60-year-olds!
That is you
September 24th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Yes, Jon, don’t let this give you any ideas.
I am only in my 40’s so it will be a while yet before I achieve my full level of nastiness.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
tss…. he should have invested in viagra stock too … he’ll need it !