Fergie's Tech Blog

Swedish Police Swoop on Dan Egerstad - UPDATE

Asher Moses writes on The Age.com.au.

The Swedish hacker who perpetrated the so-called hack of the year has been arrested in a dramatic raid on his apartment, during which he was taken in for questioning and several of his computers confiscated.

Dan Egerstad, a security consultant, intercepted data carried over a global communications network used by embassies around the world in August and gained access to 1000 sensitive email accounts. They contained confidential diplomatic memos and other sensitive government emails.

After informing the governments involved of their security failings and receiving no response, Egerstad published 100 of the email accounts, including login details and passwords, on his website for anyone curious enough to have a look. The site, derangedsecurity.com, has since been taken offline.

The hack required little more than tools freely available on the internet, and Egerstad maintains he broke no laws. In fact, he is confident the email accounts he gained access to were already compromised by other hackers, so his efforts in fact prevented them from continuing their spying.

posted by Fergie @ 11/14/2007 06:13:00 PM