Kind of big thing for a bunch of High school kids. Getting bigger all the time. We need a new category for the hacking stuff.

And the beat goes on.

More companies claim hacker attacks

Two more United States companies have revealed they had been either attacked or used this past week in attacks mounted by hackers against some of the most popular Internet websites.

Evisioneering Group and RealNames Corporation said their systems had been penetrated by electronic intruders in attacks whose consequences are still being assessed.

Richard Doherty, the director of research for Envisioneering Group, a technology consulting company, said hackers tried to use his company's computer as a transit point to send a flood of e-mails to leading US Internet operators Yahoo and America Online (AOL).

Mr Doherty said Envisioneering Group had registered the first penetration attempt on January 29.

"We think it was a test, as it were, of our system to see if it was going to be a suitable base, if you will," he said.

"And then our system was also attacked, or we believe, tried to be used again to attack AOL and Yahoo on February 8."

Mr Doherty said on the first occasion the hackers had been able to create an e-mail account that was subsequently used to launch a flood of bogus e-mails on to the targeted companies.

"Our solution that day was to throw out all of our pending e-mail, including our own," he said.

The last attempt to hack the company's computer occurred on Friday, according to Mr Doherty, who said it was unsuccessful because the passwords had already been changed.

"At this point, I would not call it an attack so much as a knock on the door, and we are not letting them in," he said.

An employee for RealNames, a San Carlos, California-based company, confirmed that its computers came under attack in the past week but declined to provide any detail.

RealNames, which facilities navigation on the Internet, is reported to have credit card information on about 15,000 of its customers on file, and media reports say the confidentiality of the data appears to have been compromised.

The newly revealed attacks are the lastest episodes in a cyberspace onslaught mounted against the world's most popular Internet sites this week.

Besides Yahoo, suspected hackers launched assaults on the on-line retailers Amazon.com, eBay and Buy.com, as well as securities trading sites Datek and E-Trade and the site run by television company CNN.

The attempts have led to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation launching a full-scale criminal investigation into the attacks on Wednesday.

"We are committed to taking steps to make sure e-commerce remains a secure place to do business," US Attorney-General Janet Reno said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/nat/newsnat-13feb2000-36.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 13, 2000

Answers

At first glance, this does seem too big for teenage kids. But, having the distinction of being an old hacker (but a *good* old hacker!) I understand that the bigger the scale of the conquest .... the better. Plus, who has more time on their hands than a teenager?

Let's face it, we all know that if somebody really big and organized wanted to, they could take down our vulnerable infrastructure in a day.

I am considering putting up a separate forum for hacking/cracking/e- crime issues, as that is the area in which I am working now, and this topic will not go away anytime soon. There are too many hacker egos to be fed, and these recent attacks just fuel all hackers exponentially as they trip all over each other in an attempt to better each other's accomplishments.

For what it's worth...

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), February 13, 2000.