Security News > 2001 > February > Hackers say attack was easy

http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500308974-500496290-503480397-0,00.html By JONATHAN FOWLER Associated Press GENEVA (February 11, 2001 7:03 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Uncovering confidential data, such as passwords and credit card numbers, on business and government leaders who attended an annual meeting in the Swiss Alps was easy, computer hackers were quoted as saying Sunday. The Zurich weekly SonntagsZeitung, which last Sunday disclosed the capture of data on 27,000 leaders, listed on the Internet the type of information that was compromised for each leader. Former President Bill Clinton's forum password and actor Dustin Hoffman's e-mail address were included. The newspaper lists the names and titles, but withholds the confidential numbers. Organizers of the annual gathering last week confirmed that hackers broke into a computer containing credit card numbers and other confidential data, but they denied reports that former President Clinton had been among the people compromised. "It was just lying there offering itself in a show window," SonntagsZeitung quoted an unidentified member of hacker collective Virtual Monkeywrench as saying on Sunday. The hacker compared entering the computer with walking into an open courtyard. The newspaper said it had to conduct the interview in writing through an intermediary. The information varies from business leaders' credit card numbers to passwords for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said SonntagsZeitung. Other data included direct and cellular telephone numbers for some leaders and e-mail addresses for others, it said. Charles McLean, spokesman for the World Economic Forum, criticized the SonntagsZeitung's publication of the data. "They are trafficking in stolen material, and using it to sell newspapers," McLean told The Associated Press. McLean said the newspaper had refused requests from the World Economic Forum that all copies of the data be returned, and that legal options were being considered. The forum last week filed a complaint and authorities in Geneva are investigating the matter. The forum, a foundation set up 30 years ago to run the annual meetings, has been increasingly targeted by activists who maintain that it is an exclusive club acting in the interests of big business and against the world's poor. McLean said such criticism ignores the positive work of the forum, ranging from getting drug companies to improve access to medicines, to bringing together Balkan presidents to discuss regional reconstruction. SonntagsZeitung said it learned of the computer break-in through a CD-ROM it received from the hackers. Included were 800,000 pages of data. This week it produced a sample of what had been stolen from whom: the e-mail address of Microsoft's Bill Gates, the direct telephone number of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, and the credit card number of Pepsi-Cola CEO Peter M. Thompson. The group -- whose name harks back to the "monkeywrenching" of United States environmentalists -- were quoted as saying their cyber-attack had been an attempt to destabilize the forum. ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".

News URL

http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500308974-500496290-503480397-0,00.html