Sarkozy falls prey to bank hacker

Date: October 21, 2008
Source: vnunet.com


French President Nichols Sarkozy was the victim of an internet bank attack, according to government officials.

The attacks occurred in September when Sarkozy's online bank access codes were illegally obtained and used to perform several cash transfers.

The exact amounts of the transactions were not disclosed, though the amounts were reportedly enough to allow the attackers to open mobile phone accounts.

While commenting on the matter, French secretary of state for consumer affairs Luc Chatel said that the number of cybercrimes reported in the country had gone up some 9 per cent in the last year.

McAfee researcher Francois Paget said in a blog posting that the information used by the hackers may have been obtained through a third party which directly collected Sarkozy's information and then sold it online as 'dump tracks' in a fraud process known as 'carding.'

"The most probable origin of Sarkozy’s identity theft is carding," wrote Paget.

"Dump tracks lists are for sale by the thousands, and many hacked credit card readers are on the market. Perhaps one of them involved Sarkozy’s credit card during one of his numerous foreign travels."
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