Canoe

Monday, November 13, 2000

Hackers hammer NHL fans

By MIKE D'AMOUR -- The Calgary Sun

Invaders from cyberspace have attacked a Canadian institution and, temporarily at least, spoiled the fun for hundreds of thousands of hockey fans.

One of the largest online hockey pools in the country, www.officepools.com, has fallen victim to hackers from outside North America, says the man who maintains the pool.

"Congratulations to the hacker or team of hackers (who've) ruined a free service for 300,000 Canadians and many others around the world," Colin Briosi wrote to his subscribers over the weekend.

The site keeps track of player statistics for groups of fans who "draft" teams at the start of the NHL season, the winner finishing with the most points in the group.

With major companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo! also the recent victims of hackers, the intrusion into the pool site should come as no surprise, said a spokesman from a Calgary-based Internet security company.

"The profile of a typical hacker is just a guy doing it for kicks," said Nino Plava of JAWS Technologies.

"And simply putting up a firewall isn't enough to stop them."

While the hockey pool attack really didn't put anybody out of cash, that's not always the case, he said.

"It can be a very serious matter; the recent attacks on Yahoo! and CNBC represented a $275 million US loss."

While Briosi is stunned by the attack on his site, he's not calling it quits.

"Make no mistake folks, officepools is coming back and your pools are 100% intact -- they are on my laptop," he said in his notice.

He hopes to be back in business on Friday.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), November 13, 2000