Fergie's Tech Blog

Cybercrime Book Excerpt: Zero Day Threat

Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz write on Wired.com:

When a shadowy Nigerian national with the nickname Mr. O finagled his way into the vast files of data broker ChoicePoint in 2003, he struck a mother lode of confidential information -- by internal ChoicePoint estimates, records of up to 4.3 million individuals.

By the time ChoicePoint publicly disclosed what was then the largest data-security breach, the FBI and Los Angeles police were investigating, lawmakers demanded hearings, and ChoicePoint vowed to remake itself. Some privacy advocates insisted the incident would underscore the dangers of data theft and ID fraud.

And yet, data breaches got bigger and broader in the intervening years, as Internet-based commerce and social networking inexorably expand. Since ChoicePoint, online scammers have repeatedly victimized corporations and their customers. The most audacious was the theft of records of as many as 94 million credit card transactions from giant retailer TJX, parent of 2,500 TJ Maxx and Marshall's stores.

Amid the wholesale rip-off of consumer data through cybercrime, USA Today reporters Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz began investigating the evolution of hacking from harmful pranks to a $100 billion-per-year criminal enterprise worldwide. Their resulting book, Zero Day Threat, examines the con men and cybercrooks who are exploiting security holes in online banking and shopping services.

posted by Fergie @ 3/31/2008 09:15:00 PM