Hacker extradited into the US
Date: April 28, 2006Source: PC WORLD
By:
Gary McKinnon, who spoke on a panel at Infosec Europe 2006 here, made a critical
miscalculation when poking around one of his targets that started an international investigation.
"I got caught because I was using a graphical remote control tool, and I forgot what time zone I was in," McKinnon said. "Somebody was in the office when I was moving the mouse around."
McKinnon's probes occurred when computers were left on but employees were gone. Simply shutting down computers at night reduces the risk, he said.
Legal Background
A London court will decide May 10 whether to grant the U.S. extradition request. McKinnon, who reportedly is interested in UFOs, is charged with breaking into Pentagon, U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and NASA computers, installing remote administration tools and accessing unclassified files.
McKinnon, who has been out on bail, sat on the panel with Robert Schifreen, another noted British ex-hacker. Schifreen and a co-defendant were the first in the world to face a trial for computer hacking, after tampering with BT Group PLC's Prestel network in the mid-1980s.
Hacking, Schifreen said, is just one of many threats facing the computer security landscape, which now encompasses spam, phishing, and credit card fraud.
"Despite what Microsoft says about Windows Vista, computer crime and hacking and fraud will continue, and no single product is going to make it go away," Schifreen said.
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