Book Excerpts
The Internet’s 40th anniversary timeline of milestones
September 2, 2009
The Associated Press and Symantec have each compiled timelines to mark the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Internet. The compilation below begins with LastWatchdog’s description of the current threat landscape. Combined and supplementing the timelines reveal how a military grade experiment, designed with an open architecture that preserves s anonymity, evolved into a global force, embraced with equal fervor by corporations, braggarts and criminals.
Summer of 2009: Bad URLs swamp the Internet. …More
Hacking for bragging rights gives way to hacking for ill-gotten profits
April 8, 2008
Book Excerpt
Chapter 1-Built For Speed
Pages 14- 21
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity
White Hats, Black Hats, Gray Hats
Mafiaboy
The year is 1999-the close of the twentieth century. “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” Harry Potter, and The Blair Witch Project dominate pop culture. John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a small plane to a Martha’s Vineyard …More
Seeking to impress his girlfriend, Samy worm creator introduces huge new attack surface
April 8, 2008
Book Excerpt
Chapter 15
Pages 189-196
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity
Expediters
Silly Samy
In another sort of counterintuitive development, a vast new sector opened up where cybercriminals could roam, but it did not derive from the work of a brilliant, handsomely paid mercenary programmer. It blossomed thanks to a popularity-starved script kiddie from Los Angeles, nicknamed Samy, who …More
How hacker wannabes become profit-driven cyberthieves
April 8, 2008
Book Excerpt
Chapter 4
Pages 46- 49
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity
Self-anointed Avenger
Exploiters
Fall 2003, Edmonton
Socrates at the Beverly Motel, Edmonton
The oldest of three children in a stable, churchgoing family, Socrates recalls getting hooked on computers as a young kid. Introverted, soft-spoken, and respectful of his parents, Socrates taught …More
Criminal hacking at the grass roots level
April 8, 2008
Book Excerpt – The cost of doing business
Chapter 8
Pages 95-98
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity
March 2005, Edmonton
In the year and a half Yolanda and Jacques were a couple, they had lived in three different places. The apartment they currently occupied, a two-bedroom, third-floor walk-up in the middle-class Mill Woods neighborhood south of the city, …More
Microsoft pays $250,000 bounty to catch Netsky/Sasser author
April 8, 2008
Book Excerpt
Chapter 4
Pages 52- 59
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity 2008 by Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, Union Square Press, Sterling Publishing Co. ISBN- 13: 978-1-4027-5695-5
Virus Wars
Subject: Hi
So began the Virus Wars of 2004. It would pit the new breed of for-profit virus writers against an idealistic German teenager. Collateral damage would reverberate around the globe: tens of millions of PCs compromised; hospitals, banks, and transportation …More
How credit bureaus created and perpetuate errors in your credit history
April 8, 2008
Book Excerpt
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity 2008 by Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, Union Square Press, Sterling Publishing Co.
Rife with Inaccuracies (Pages 88-94)
Lending is the art of hedging your bets. The basic model for doing it profitably is simple. Whenever possible, make loans only to borrowers of good repute likely to repay you as agreed, with reasonable interest. Should you choose to …More