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1995-03-03
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"Cyberspace travellers beware: A wild, lawless land awaits"
Computers: Internet users must be wary of being victimized.
By Elisa Williams and Michelle Vranizan
The Orange County Register
Cyberspace surfers got a potent warning Thursday when news spread that a
convicted computer hacker might have used the Internet to swipe 20,000 credit
cards.
The message: User beware
"People are working on ways to make it more secure, but right now we
don't recommend that anyone do anything on the Internet they wouldn't want
made public." Said Johnathan Wheat, a technology analyst with the National
Computer Security Association.
Today, with more than 20 million users, this international computer
network has all the marks of a big city: vandals, pornography and organized
crime. So experts warn that if you want to reap the rewards of exploring this
new electronic frontier, be wary. You could get everything from your identity
to your credit card stolen.
"Consumers at the moment aren't at very much risk, but that's going to
chang," said Steven M. Bellovin, author of "Firewalls and Internet Security"
and a computer-security researcher. "There is no way to totally avoid a
problem, other than to never use the Internet. The more reasonable approach
is to make sure you know who you're dealing with online." At this point,
forgery is probally a bigger problem than credit card theft, Bellovin said.
Hackers use devices called sniffers to learn a person's identity and
Internet password. Then they use that information to send forged messages or
tap into information they use otherwise don't have access to. Most of this
type of mischief is done by so-called "cook-book" hackers, who know the
recipe to get into certain types of computers.
For example, last month Michael Wolff, author of "Net Guide," was
targeted by an anonymous computer terrorist. Someone wiped out dozens of
messages Wolff posted in Cyberspace and found a way to impersonate him, using
his identity to send electronic mail. [Also] "There's been instances where
(students) give passwords to friends..."
More rare attacks are made by seasoned hackers such as 31-year-old Kevin
Mitnick. He was tracked down in North Carolina this week and accused of
taking 20,000 credit-card numbers from customers of Netcom On-Line
Communications. Officials say he did not use any of the numbers, but service
was forced to change the way it stores credit-card information. "There wasn't
a single in which one of these numbers was used," said Netcom spokesman
Heather Schoeny.
Experts also point out that Netcom subscribers were no more at risk than
anyone who shares a credit-card number with mail-order service or waiter.
More vulnerable are companies with computers hooked into the Internet. Without
proper security, a hacker could damage or wipe out company records.
Wolff said Mitnick may have done a lot of people a favor by pointing out
how vulnerable the Internet is. Arresting him, "to some degree, is like
killing the messenger," Wolff said.
OC Register Friday, Feb. 17, 1995
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