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Initiatives against chip thieves
MARKET
NEWS
Initiatives against chip thieves the UK, on the 19th October, InScotland Yard launched a new joint operation coordinated
by the City of
“hardware theft is one of the fastest growing areas of criminal activity in the UK today” London Police, the six Regional Crime Squads and Scotland Yard. Computer Weekly reports that the campaign will include a crime prevention programme, led by a scheme to spread good security
practices between firms, and new measures to bring the main thieves to justice. The initiative was started by a sub-committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), under the chairmanship of Commander Tom Williamson. The group, known as the Joint Action Group, has acknowledged that hardware theft is one of the fastest growing areas of criminal activity in the UK today. The epidemic has been fuelled by chip shortages, which have led to soaring prices for microprocessors and the increasingly memory demanding applications available. Participants signed up so far include British Airways, BT and the Prudential. The campaign will also produce
publicity material on how companies can protect their systems. Other initiatives will include the pooling of resources on known computer criminals and new techniques to catch criminals who are selling their stolen goods to unscrupulous dealers. The police are blaming the massive rise in thefts of computer chips from business premises on lax security. The problem is costing UK businesses an estimated f200 million a year in destroyed systems, lost data and productivity. Many incidents could be prevented by the simplest of security measures. Some burglaries have even taken place whilst there have been security guards on site.
Hire a hacker to test your security of America’s most infamous T wo hackers are among those being offered for hire by a former CIA agent, reveals The Observer. For $1000 a day, companies and government agencies will be able to make use of ‘Dark Tangent’ and ‘Eric Bloodaxe’ to attack their systems and computer demonstrate how secure - or not they are. The ‘Hackers for Hire’ advertisement appears in the OSS Notices, published by ex-CIA agent Robert Steele. The quality of hackers ‘rented’ through him will be validated by Emanual Goldstein, founder and editor ofAil.2600, the hacker quarterly. Potential customers were assured that the 10 hackers on Steele’s books have clean criminal records and “meet all legal and ethical requirements for professional hacker assistance”.
4
Rumour has it that the US Navy’s Atlantic Intelligence Centre has hired its own team of hackers, who were challenged to break Navy computer
“For $1000 a day, companies and government agencies will be able to make use of ‘Dark Tangent’ and ‘Eric Bloodaxe”’ codes in an electronic war game. The move follows a warning from the head
of the US Defence Information Systems Agency, Bob Ayers, that the number of attacks on Department of Defence computer systems - already 550 this year - will soar to 28 000 by the end of the decade. Secure Computing Corp. threw down a challenge to hackers to break into its most secure system. It was an irresistible dare, leading to more than 1000 unsuccessful attacks to date. The marketing of Eric Bloodaxe and Dark Tangent marks the transformation of two f the hacking community’s legendary outlaws into ‘Internet cops’. Steele, who has set himself up as a father figure to US hackers, believes that at most there are between 20 and 50 genuine hackers in the world, able to break into systems without the help of an insider.
Computer Fraud & Security November 1995 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
NEWS
Initiatives against chip thieves the UK, on the 19th October, InScotland Yard launched a new joint operation coordinated
by the City of
“hardware theft is one of the fastest growing areas of criminal activity in the UK today” London Police, the six Regional Crime Squads and Scotland Yard. Computer Weekly reports that the campaign will include a crime prevention programme, led by a scheme to spread good security
practices between firms, and new measures to bring the main thieves to justice. The initiative was started by a sub-committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), under the chairmanship of Commander Tom Williamson. The group, known as the Joint Action Group, has acknowledged that hardware theft is one of the fastest growing areas of criminal activity in the UK today. The epidemic has been fuelled by chip shortages, which have led to soaring prices for microprocessors and the increasingly memory demanding applications available. Participants signed up so far include British Airways, BT and the Prudential. The campaign will also produce
publicity material on how companies can protect their systems. Other initiatives will include the pooling of resources on known computer criminals and new techniques to catch criminals who are selling their stolen goods to unscrupulous dealers. The police are blaming the massive rise in thefts of computer chips from business premises on lax security. The problem is costing UK businesses an estimated f200 million a year in destroyed systems, lost data and productivity. Many incidents could be prevented by the simplest of security measures. Some burglaries have even taken place whilst there have been security guards on site.
Hire a hacker to test your security of America’s most infamous T wo hackers are among those being offered for hire by a former CIA agent, reveals The Observer. For $1000 a day, companies and government agencies will be able to make use of ‘Dark Tangent’ and ‘Eric Bloodaxe’ to attack their systems and computer demonstrate how secure - or not they are. The ‘Hackers for Hire’ advertisement appears in the OSS Notices, published by ex-CIA agent Robert Steele. The quality of hackers ‘rented’ through him will be validated by Emanual Goldstein, founder and editor ofAil.2600, the hacker quarterly. Potential customers were assured that the 10 hackers on Steele’s books have clean criminal records and “meet all legal and ethical requirements for professional hacker assistance”.
4
Rumour has it that the US Navy’s Atlantic Intelligence Centre has hired its own team of hackers, who were challenged to break Navy computer
“For $1000 a day, companies and government agencies will be able to make use of ‘Dark Tangent’ and ‘Eric Bloodaxe”’ codes in an electronic war game. The move follows a warning from the head
of the US Defence Information Systems Agency, Bob Ayers, that the number of attacks on Department of Defence computer systems - already 550 this year - will soar to 28 000 by the end of the decade. Secure Computing Corp. threw down a challenge to hackers to break into its most secure system. It was an irresistible dare, leading to more than 1000 unsuccessful attacks to date. The marketing of Eric Bloodaxe and Dark Tangent marks the transformation of two f the hacking community’s legendary outlaws into ‘Internet cops’. Steele, who has set himself up as a father figure to US hackers, believes that at most there are between 20 and 50 genuine hackers in the world, able to break into systems without the help of an insider.
Computer Fraud & Security November 1995 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd