updated 2010 Feb 19
actual examples including screen captures of hacks
- including Domain Name hacks
 
 

Domain Names
	marketing issues	witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamesmktg.htm
	registration isses	witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamesregister.htm
	scams and problems	witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamesscams.htm
	scams, phishing	witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamephishing.htm
	domain name hacking	witiger.com/ecommerce/hackingexample.htm
	domain disputes	witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamedisputes.htm
	Verisgn problems	witiger.com/ecommerce/domainnamephishing-verisign.htm

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Hacking Examples 2010

Feb 2010 as reported in the Globe and Mail "Police in central China have shut down a hacker training operation [Black Hawk Safety Net] that openly recruited thousands of members online and provided them with cyberattack lessons and malicious software..." "The crackdown comes amid growing concern that China is a centre for Internet crime and industrial espionage." the Globe said "... it is hard to know what proportion of hacking from China is the work of individuals and whether the government is involved. But some say the high skill level of some attacks suggests China's military or other agencies might have trained or directed the hackers."

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Hacking Examples 2008

7-Eleven Hack From Russia Led to ATM Looting in New York $180,000 is stolen from ATM machines after hackers are able to obtain PIN numbers of customers after they hacked the main server of the ATM company "Russia has a remarkably talented pool of hackers and cyber criminals, but just why so many viruses, phishing scams, and cyber attacks originate in the former Soviet Union isn’t clear. Perhaps it has something to do with the combination of very high levels of IT education with extremely poor job prospects."  http://thefastertimes.com/russia/2009/08/14/hacking-for-mother-russia/

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Hacking Examples - lists of hacks

list of  IT events and significant hacks from http://www.wbglinks.net/pages/history/ (this URL not working in 2006) some entries on this list include... 2003 Two hackers who broke into Riverside County, California court computers and electronically dismissed a variety of  pending cases plead guilty to the crime. Both William Grace, 22, and Brandon Wilson, 28, were sentenced to nine years in jail after  pleading guilty to 72 counts of illegally entering a computer system and editing data, along with seven counts of conspiracy to commit extortion 2002 Italian police arrest 14 suspected hackers who are accused of thousands of computer intrusions, including attacks on   the U.S. Army and Navy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They were all members of two hacking groups, called Mentor and Reservoir Dogs.  2002 Hacker Vasily Gorshkov, 27, of Chelyabinsk, Russia, is sentenced to three years in prison for convictions on 20 counts  of conspiracy, fraud and related computer crimes. Gorshkov is also ordered to pay restitution of nearly $700,000 for losses he caused to Speakeasy Network of Seattle and the online credit card payment company PayPal.

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Hacking Example

Municipal Election - Ontario 2006 Sometimes hacking is done for financial gain, sometimes for political purposes to advance some cause, and sometimes it is done just for good 'ol fashioned mud slinging in a local circumstance. Toronto Star reporters Peter Edwards and Richard Brennan wrote a story October 24th saying that "York Region police Chief Arnand La Barge is recommending an outside police force investigate how leaked emails were left on the doorstep of Vaughan Mayor Michael Di Biase". Apparently in the municipal election there is a tough contest between the incumbent mayor, Michael DiBiase and challenger Linda Jackson. It is suggested by journalists Edwards and Brennan that someone hacked the computer of Councillor Linda Jackson and printed out emails between her and a York Region police officer. It is suggested that these emails contain private personal communication between Jackson and this police officer. Someone appears to be trying to give Mayor Di Biase an advantage by providing him with lurid details about some activity being done by his competitor. Jackson went on record as saying "it's an inside job". which suggests that sometimes external controls and carefully monitored security cannot be effective if it is undermined by people that have internal access to a network.

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Hacking Example - politically motivated

Arab satellite news channel  Al-Jazeera was hacked and  its traffic redirected to a site showing an American flag  and the words "Let Freedom Ring."  The hacker carried out the hack by forging documents to have the Web site's  password changed. That provided unhindered access to the site and  blocked access by its legitimate administrators, according to the story carried on Yahoo 2003 Nov 14th. The hacker,  John Racine, was caught and U.S. authourities prosecuted him. Racine plead guilty and was given community service. Racine said he "acted after learning in March [2003]  that Al-Jazeera's Web site had posted photos of American prisoners of war and soldiers killed during the U.S. invasion of Iraq".

This was widespread and people using the Internet at Centennial College and University of Toronto were effected for several hours on Monday and Tuesday.
 

www.dvdshopper.com - hacked	www.dvdshopper.com - original
www.stamps.com - hacked	www.stamps.com - the original
www.exportingcanadaonline.com - hacked	www.exportingcanadaonline.com - original

Tracking down who is involved

- so what we did was look for the telephone number "562-807-0297" (which showed up on the hacked version) and see if it showed up any place else on the net Using a Search Engine, like Yahoo we found the site to the left The telephone number "562-807-0297" shows up in comments made about  court case in which one company sued another company claiming that they had fraudently represented themselves in order to register a domain name, and that they wanted to squat on that domain name, then sell it at a profit. details at  http://legal.web.aol.com/ aol/aolpol/seescandy.html.

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"This patent infringement case [launched by Columbia Insurance Company] highlights the difficulties in stopping another's harmful illegal conduct over the   Internet. The owner of the "See's Candy" trademark  was denied an ex parte preliminary injunction to prevent continued use of the domain names   "www.seescandy.com" and "www.seescandys.com"   since the motion failed to identity of the other party, referring only to the websites themselves and the   pseudonyms they were registered under. The plaintiff faces the conundrum of allowing the infringement to  continue while it must conduct extensive investigation to ascertain the true identity of the domain name owner."  http://www.netlitigation.com/netlitigation/defamation.htm basically, the people who cyber-squatted on seescandy.com where able to escape litigation because they could not be identified - they hid (successfully) behind too many layers of red tape in the community of domain name registrants and ISPs

 

In the hacked versions of these sites, reference is made to an email addresses for a company at Nebulant.com Nebulant does exist and they have a page, as can be seen in the screen capture to the left, but it remains to be confirmed if they have an active or passive role in this hack. Nebulant's tel: number is 562-467-8990, not 562-807-0297  Is this a real company? Why are they trying to drive traffic to that address?

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Where can we find  562-807-0297 , that might lead to us to the answer to who is conducting this hack, and why?  562-807-0297 also shows up as the contact telephone number for a web site hosting company in California www.developer.org the screen capture to the left was made 2001 June 26 and clearly shows 562-807-0297 as the contact

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