Hacker try to steal money from my account

[Mattinblack]

Sigh. I have lost count of how many times I have read threads like this on adult and non adult webmaster forums. We live in an age where every company that has a financial payments side to it is capable of being targetted by hackers worldwide, many of the Soviet Mafia hackers have KGB/GRU info war training and a data stick in their back pocket full of hack utilities from the soviet military.

In a previous life I was in charge of all aspects of a large installation and most of the security holes that were exploited had nothing to do with scripts on servers or database security as such. They were mostly Windoze vulnerabilities. The worst problem we had was a guy we simply could not trace for weeks. It turned out that he had taken over a humble PC that was used by the artwork department to process batches of image files.

Of necessity it had its own internet connection and when the system was designed was not connected to our intranet. Some bright spark decided to run an ethernet cable and connect it so that he could backup files onto our main server instead of burning optical discs. The hacker had zombified the PC, run a packet sniffer and a trace utility to map our network and headed straight for accounts.

Luckily we were running our accounts on a legacy HP mainframe and not a PC system, he was obviously all at sea and made some mistakes. If it was a Windoze or unix system we would probably stil be scratching our heads.

The learning outcome of this decision was that I have decided to firewall ANY secure data behind the wierdest and wackiest hardware/software I can find with lots of security logging and audit trails. Hint there are a lot of old but perfectly servicable Dec Minis out there .....If there is only one access pipe and its monitored and logged for any suspicious activity then it can be stopped before too much damage is done. The trouble with using Windoze and unix boxes for this activity is that there are too many unpatched security holes that are well documented and with exploits written for them. Who is to say the machine doing the watching is not itself compromised? If the machine monitoring and controlling the pipe is one which few people know anything about then its much more secure.

[kit]

Originally Posted by Mattinblack

many of the Soviet Mafia hackers have KGB/GRU info war training and a data stick in their back pocket full of hack utilities from the soviet military.

The pure predujice. After USSR crushing, many people morally degraded especially teenagers in their 10 y.o. They are the real hackers and carders, their average age is 18-25 years now. They're still here because the weak state. But I hope (and really see during last years) how they getting screwed!

There is a big problem with Eastern Europe and Asian countries.

[Mattinblack]

Originally Posted by kit

The pure predujice.

No prejudice intended Kit. This is from experience and advice from UK law enforcement.

Originally Posted by kit

teenagers in their 10 y.o. They are the real hackers and carders, their average age is 18-25 years now.

Yeah they can get into sites that have little or no security. However the attacks on the well secured big-money sites are nearly all organised crime, and those are nearly all Russian Mafia, and they employ nearly all ex KGB/GRU Information Warfare specialists. This is what was patiently explained to me a year ago by the deputy head of Londons Scotland Yard Computer Crime division after a site with state of the art security and storing a few thousand sets of personal financial details was comprehensively trashed.

We had insurance but our concern was 'where was the hole in our security' the worrying thing was all three experts we hired plus the polices own expert concluded there werent any. The even more worrying thing was that the police had at least 2-3 cases like this a month in the UK alone. The IP addresses all traced back to the same server which was on a dial-up line physically located in the Ukraine but was mobile on the trunk network (ie that too had been hacked and whenever you try to trace a number the software reports a different one back).

[urb]

Originally Posted by Mattinblack

This is what was patiently explained to me a year ago by the deputy head of Londons Scotland Yard Computer Crime division ...

Interesting circles you move in, to be sure.

[Mattinblack]

Originally Posted by urb

Interesting circles you move in, to be sure.

I used to work for a *big* company in the UK before I went freelance Urb. When you have big and very public problems that make the national press then you do what you gotta do! Hell if I thought it would have helped I would have brought in the SAS and a squadron of Royal Corgis!

Eventually got so stressed out that my doctor said ;
'change jobs or else'

[Papa]

Originally Posted by kit

The pure predujice. After USSR crushing, many people morally degraded especially teenagers in their 10 y.o. They are the real hackers and carders, their average age is 18-25 years now. They're still here because the weak state. But I hope (and really see during last years) how they getting screwed!

There is a big problem with Eastern Europe and Asian countries.

I'm afraid to say that they won't dispear. Imagine the "skills" of a 25year old guy if he started in this shit 10 years ago
Wow, i'm sure he could hack anything !

[DJilla]

Originally Posted by Mattinblack

It turned out that he had taken over a humble PC that was used by the artwork department to process batches of image files.

Of necessity it had its own internet connection and when the system was designed was not connected to our intranet. Some bright spark decided to run an ethernet cable and connect it so that he could backup files onto our main server instead of burning optical discs.

I gotta say, that everything you've posted here is so completely correct and "classic" that I was almost doubting you didn't just lift this from a book.... up until you mentioned using a PDP as a front end which is really quite a clever, cheap and innovative idea. OK... I believe you! (not that I think you care). What I don't get is why you'd leave the leading edge field of security for this stuff? Stress...?!!!>><??! Agggh... buck it up soldier!

[Mattinblack]

Was hardly on the leading edge of security Urb- just managing the companies web business. Also happento be a bit of a techie.

As for why... my doctor told me if I did not fin a less stressful career then my life expectancy would be measured in months rather than years. Adult is not all that I do - I enjoy the variety of work!

Matt

[DJilla]

Originally Posted by Mattinblack

Was hardly on the leading edge of security Urb- just managing the companies web business. Also happento be a bit of a techie.

As for why... my doctor told me if I did not fin a less stressful career then my life expectancy would be measured in months rather than years. Adult is not all that I do - I enjoy the variety of work!

Matt

I just assumed because your description was so perfectly right and as I said a CLASSIC scenario. It was so correctly detailed that only a certain type of person would have that knowledge. I can relate to the stress issues.... truth of the matter was I ran a consulting company, very successful, for better than a decade and ended up flipping out so bad that I sold it in pieces and for peanuts. Voluntarily went from about 115k a year to 12k and spent the next two years making junk jewelry and going to the beach. I swore I'd never touch a computer again. That was back in 1996. Just started inching back a few years ago... because the web was just too enticing. Good luck... happy and prosperous new year.