Hacker HuntersPlug-In B6 p.341

Matt SpindlerCIS 429

What are Hacker Hunters?

New type of crime-fighter

Job is to crack down on internet criminals

Track down email and business scams

Protect people from crimes

Internet Crime Complaint Center

http://ic3.gov

A division of the FBI

Takes complaints from citizens and presents them to the proper agency

Most are handled by the FBI or Secret Service

Helps to Take Down Cyber

Criminals✓Helped Take Down

Romanian eBay scam.✓Group set up fake

accounts selling products that were never delivered

Was created in 2004 to create a joint task force to crack down on cyber crime

๏FBI๏Department of Justice๏Secret Service๏Postal Inspection Service๏Federal Trade Commission๏Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Operation Firewall

One of the largest international cyber crime operations

Took down the cybercrime group “ShadowCrew”

Reported to have over 4000 members

ShadowCrew

Stole credit card information for personal use and sale.

Helped create fake identification to allow people to use stolen credit cards

Reported to have made over $4 million in two years

Got most card information through email phishing scams

Shadowcrew

They were able to access over 12 companies networks and steal credit card information

Most companies who were cracked never knew information was stolen

One member “Scarface” sold 115,695 credit card numbers in a single transaction

How they got caught

One high level member, a US citizen was caught and arrested, he turned into an informant.

They set up a VPN service for the leadership to use and tracked all their information.

The informant was believed to be trustworthy so many used his gateway

The arrest of ShadowCrew

On a sunday night a joint operation between 8 states and 6 countries performed a raid on 28 homes arresting all the leadership of ShadowCrew.

This was all timed so that the others could not give warnings over instant message for some to escape.

QUESTIONS

What types of technology could big retailers use to prevent identity thieves from

purchasing merchandise?

Cards with RFID and Pin Numbers (popular in the UK)

What can Organizations do to protect themselves from hackers looking to steal

account data?

Restrict access to only those necessary

Require more difficult passwords

Higher quality firewall and security systems

Authorities frequently tap online service providers to track down hackers. Do you think is it ethical for authorities to tap an

online service provider and read people’s e-mail?

It is ethical and important for authorities to have access to criminal activity via e-mail or normal internet use. But it must be accessed by a warrant issued by a judge. It is unethical to access everyone’s information looking for any crime without prior suspicion.

Do you think it was ethical for authorities to use one of the high-ranking officials to trap

other gang members?

The use of a lighter sentence for those who cooperate with authorities is a long standing tradition. This is how cases are made and witnesses are found to take down a criminal organization.

Research the best way to protect yourself from identity theft.

Monitor your credit report

Keep track of your bank and credit card records

Do not volunteer any private information via email

Shred any paperwork with personal information

Never use a credit card on a nonsecure site

Use a STRONG password

Current Information

Most crimes being reported to the IC3 are about email phishing scams.

Because of social networking people are starting to lose their safety and privacy on the net.

Personal questions used to recover passwords can be found on these sites and this is increasing cases of theft.

Very Current Information

Military secrets regarding Marine One were stolen from a defense contractor

Authorities have traced the file to Iran

The file was stolen because an employee was running a P2P program on a company computer to download music