Call me stupid, call me a moron, call me a weekend alcoholic. However, as a gambler, and a person who can be considered logical at certain times, I am totally miffed that these scumbag DOS attackers are still going strong. How in the F... can these guys still be extorting huge coin from all these books with ZERO reprisal? In this day and age, isn't there a way to catch up with these guys. I was told that for every genius out there, a smarter guy always exists. Well I guess when it comes to this stuff, every other computer techie is a complete, and i mean complete dolt. There have to be literally thousands of supposedly smart guys who are working to stave off the attacks, in complete futility. I just cannot believe that considering all of the money that these attacks are costing the books, don best, etc, etc, that nobody can beat these evil f...ing Russians or whoever they are. Can't interpol or some other agency facilitate? Or are they all idiots too? Isn't someone smart enough to send a cop over there to follow the people after they pick up the extorted funds? Maybe I am the idiot, but I just think there are too many questions here, with too few answers. If someone out there can clarify, I would appreciate it.
i was thinking the same. no one seems to know anything about them, even in the instances where the attacks have came and went and ransoms paid etc. no one seems to know a damn thing! then someone was like a storys coming out but they took it off becuase the dont want to give the details. and nothing ever transpired with that. now betpanam is under dos attack. im like when does it end?!??!
I thought the same thing, but someone pointed out the problem with the "follow the pickup" idea. All you have to do is say deliver the money to Mr. X in Moscow, Russia. Now how can you possibly keep an eye on every single location in Moscow or any other major city in the world? Imagine if they said send the money to New York Monday at noon, I wouldn't even want to venture a guess at how many places you could pick up money in New York during a week day.
i think receiving 30,000 in russia especially in cash would cause a problem. i used to have trouble picking up 10k at windixie. they probably have their own WU locations. i don't know how much fbi ect is involved in the investigation but i remember donbest getting hacked and having credit card numbers stolen a while back and the fbi was called in. maybe the books did not want to deal with the fbi but donbest will
Who knows how long the criminals had been planning these attacks. This is probably a group of highly organized, very intelligent computer ners who have been planinng this for quite sometime, possibly over a year.
Their main opposition is a bunch of sportsbooks operating in third world countries with most likely average tech guys. And they have only been aware of the problem for a couple months.
The biggest problem is that there are no strong agencies to deal with this problem. Helping OffShore sports books can't be a very high priority for the FBI.
I'm a little suprised they are still going so strong, but can certainly understand why.
Their main opposition is a bunch of sportsbooks operating in third world countries with most likely average tech guys. And they have only been aware of the problem for a couple months.
The biggest problem is that there are no strong agencies to deal with this problem. Helping OffShore sports books can't be a very high priority for the FBI.
I'm a little suprised they are still going so strong, but can certainly understand why.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ladeda:
Who knows how long the criminals had been planning these attacks. This is probably a group of highly organized, very intelligent computer ners who have been planinng this for quite sometime, possibly over a year.
Their main opposition is a bunch of sportsbooks operating in third world countries with most likely average tech guys. And they have only been aware of the problem for a couple months.
The biggest problem is that there are no strong agencies to deal with this problem. Helping OffShore sports books can't be a very high priority for the FBI.
I'm a little suprised they are still going so strong, but can certainly understand why.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Totally agree ... and what does the US gov't (FBI) care ... isn't internet gambling illegal according to the controversial and highly disputed wire wagering act?
So the book gets no protection and the customer gets no protection ... its like the wild west out here
Who knows how long the criminals had been planning these attacks. This is probably a group of highly organized, very intelligent computer ners who have been planinng this for quite sometime, possibly over a year.
Their main opposition is a bunch of sportsbooks operating in third world countries with most likely average tech guys. And they have only been aware of the problem for a couple months.
The biggest problem is that there are no strong agencies to deal with this problem. Helping OffShore sports books can't be a very high priority for the FBI.
I'm a little suprised they are still going so strong, but can certainly understand why.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Totally agree ... and what does the US gov't (FBI) care ... isn't internet gambling illegal according to the controversial and highly disputed wire wagering act?
So the book gets no protection and the customer gets no protection ... its like the wild west out here
The books that payed are responsible for these attacks still taking place.Pinacle, WWts, Chris,and a bunch others.Once you pay an extortionist they naver stop extorting you.If everyone would have just said I will close up shop before I will pay and got together and payed a top network fifm to stop the attacks.Now these attackers think they have a license to steal.
You gotta put yourself in the book's shoes knowing that you may have your website down for the entire football season which could kill your operation. Also knowing that there are solutions out there that people have tried and some claimed they work and others claim the solutions can simply be outfoxed. And these solutions ain't cheap - 30,000 to 40,000 grand for Attack Mitigators and most people feel the jury is still out on how effective these are.
Tough call to make for any book with so much in the balance. I'm not saying that everyone should pay but it's an individual decision on how confident you feel you can find a solution.
Remember even Microsoft was taken down for a couple days by a DOS attack and most sportsbooks, even most businesses in the world would be hard pressed to come up with the kind of technical resource that Microsoft can muster.
Hopefully these guys eventually get caught.
Tough call to make for any book with so much in the balance. I'm not saying that everyone should pay but it's an individual decision on how confident you feel you can find a solution.
Remember even Microsoft was taken down for a couple days by a DOS attack and most sportsbooks, even most businesses in the world would be hard pressed to come up with the kind of technical resource that Microsoft can muster.
Hopefully these guys eventually get caught.
It's clear that the attacks are well orginized, however the weak point these hackers have is IMHO money transfer logistics, if it's indeed by WU how ransoms are paid then I understand why it's only 30K, shoould they own an offshore account they could easily demand, for instance 300K, the quantity a book like Pinnacle or Canbet would pay with the same amount of hesitation as they pay 30K.
How Romania became a center of cybercrime
A Romanian agent uses a computer at police headquarters in Bucharest earlier this month.More than 60 Romanians have been arrested in recent joint operations involving U.S. and European agencies.
By William J. Kole
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUCHAREST, Romania, Oct. 19 — It was nearly 70 degrees below zero outside, but the e-mail on a computer at the South Pole Research Center sent a different kind of chill through the scientists inside.“I’ve hacked into the server. Pay me off or I’ll sell the station’s data to another country and tell the world how vulnerable you are,” the message warned. Proving it was no hoax, the message included scientific data showing the extortionist had roamed freely around the server, which controlled the 50 researchers’ life-support systems.
• Buy Life Insurance
• MSNBC Hot List
• Yellow Pages
• expedia.com
• Shopping
‘Frustrated with the employment possibilities offered in Romania, some of the world’s most talented computer students are exploiting their talents online.’
— INTERNET FRAUD COMPLAINT CENTER
THE FBI TRACED the e-mail to an Internet cafe in Bucharest and helped Romanian police arrest two locals — the latest evidence that computer-savvy Romanians are fast emerging as a bold menace in the shadowy world of cybercrime.
“It’s one of the leading places for this kind of activity,” said Gabrielle Burger, who runs the FBI’s office in Bucharest and is working with Romanian authorities to arrest suspects “and avoid the Sept. 11 of cybercrime.”
Law enforcement documents obtained by The Associated Press portray a loosely organized but increasingly aggressive network of young Romanians conspiring with accomplices in Europe and the United States to steal millions of dollars each year from consumers and companies.
Their specialties: defrauding consumers through bogus Internet purchases, extorting cash from companies after hacking into their systems, and designing and releasing computer-crippling worms and viruses.
Alarmed authorities say the South Pole case underscores the global impact of this new breed of cyber-outlaw.
“Frustrated with the employment possibilities offered in Romania, some of the world’s most talented computer students are exploiting their talents online,” the U.S.-based Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, says in a new report.
CRACKDOWN BEGINS
Computer crime flourished in Romania because the country lacked a cybercrime law until earlier this year, when it enacted what may be the world’s harshest. The new law punishes convicts with up to 15 years in prison — more than twice the maximum for rape.
Varujan Pambuccian, a lawmaker and former programmer, helped draft the new law after Romania’s government realized the nation, which is racing to join the European Union by 2007, was getting a bad online reputation.
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“We want a good name for our country,” he said. “I’m very angry that Romania is so well-known for ugly things — for street dogs, street children and hackers.” Pambuccian said there was a noticeable decline in criminal activity in the first three months since the law took effect.
More than 60 Romanians have been arrested in recent joint operations involving the FBI, Secret Service, Scotland Yard, the U.S. ****** Inspection Service and numerous European police agencies.
They include the two suspects implicated in the South Pole extortion attempt last May. Both are awaiting trial. Another Romanian pair was arrested on suspicion of extorting cash from Integrity Media of Mobile, Ala., after information on 30,000 credit card accounts was stolen in March.
Police say several hackers have been convicted, though in lower-profile cases.
MASTERS OF THE SCAM
Although the Russians are better known for online extortion, Romanians have become major players in the scam, a specialty also favored by criminals from Bulgaria, Poland and Slovenia.
Information technology is a Romanian forte dating to the former regime, when the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu saw computers as a way to advance communist ideology. Software piracy took firm hold during the Soviet era, when Romanians too poor to buy licensed software simply copied it.
Today, Romanians get their first computer lessons in nursery school. Universities have top-notch IT programs whose graduates are heavily recruited by Western companies. Microsoft Corp. recently acquired GeCAD, a leading Bucharest data-security firm.
The classic scam: Offer high-end electronics or other goods for sale or auction, take the order, confirm the “shipment” — and simply vanish the moment the consumer has wired payment.
But all that know-how has spawned a dark side: Internet vampires who prey on victims half a world away.
The classic scam: Offer high-end electronics or other goods for sale or auction, take the order, confirm the “shipment” — and simply vanish the moment the consumer has wired payment.
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center said it gets hundreds of complaints daily from defrauded Americans. Many cases trace to Romania, where criminals use Internet cafes to elude capture and avoid leaving a digital trail to their home PCs.
Some have developed Web pages that mimic legitimate sites such as eBay, diverting them into the cyberspace equivalent of a back alley. Buyers think they’re dealing with eBay, but their money ends up in criminal hands and the goods are never shipped.
The most brazen hack into protected corporate databases, where they copy proprietary information and demand cash on threats of publishing the findings on the open Internet.
This past summer, authorities aided by FBI experts arrested six young Romanians in the Transylvania town of Sibiu after they successfully extorted $50,000 from several leading American corporations, which were not identified.
Virgil Spiridon, chief inspector of Romania’s national police and head of a newly launched computer crime task force, said authorities have intercepted online traffic, tracked Internet headers and addresses, searched suspects’ homes and seized hard drives.
ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE LAW
But Mihai Radu of Bucharest-based BitDefender, a data security company, says criminals are smarter than local authorities.
Romanian police asked BitDefender to help track down a 24-year-old university student suspected of creating and releasing a version of the crippling MSBlaster worm in August. The suspect, Dan Ciobanu, has not been arrested but remains under investigation.
“The Romanian police aren’t qualified,” Radu said as young analysts in jeans, T-shirts and sneakers disassembled strings of code to detect possible viruses. “They don’t have the tools, the skills, the software.”
Hacks, Viruses, Scams & Spam
• E-voting flap generates legal threats
• Senate backs limits on e-mail spam
• AT&T aborts plan to block e-mail
• Spam making users wary of e-mail
Pointing up the criminals’ knack for staying one step ahead of the law, FBI documents note that because consumers are reluctant to do business with Romanians, some scammers have found accomplices in other countries. Others pass themselves off as coming from elsewhere.
When police caught on that criminals were getting paid through Western Union transactions, they switched to direct bank-to-bank transfers, which are trickier to trace. Lately, they’ve set up bogus PayPal-style escrow accounts.
In an astonishing show of bravado, some cybercriminals dare even to toy with those tracking them.
Radu recalls logging on to his PC at home, only to watch in horror as the cursor moved independently around the screen and the CD-ROM tray slid in and out as though possessed by a poltergeist.
“I was hacked,” he said. “There’s a fight between the dark side and the light side.”
Gesturing toward BitDefender’s football field-sized room of programmers, he added cryptically: “They can do anything. If they weren’t working for us, who knows what they’d be up to.”
© 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A Romanian agent uses a computer at police headquarters in Bucharest earlier this month.More than 60 Romanians have been arrested in recent joint operations involving U.S. and European agencies.
By William J. Kole
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUCHAREST, Romania, Oct. 19 — It was nearly 70 degrees below zero outside, but the e-mail on a computer at the South Pole Research Center sent a different kind of chill through the scientists inside.“I’ve hacked into the server. Pay me off or I’ll sell the station’s data to another country and tell the world how vulnerable you are,” the message warned. Proving it was no hoax, the message included scientific data showing the extortionist had roamed freely around the server, which controlled the 50 researchers’ life-support systems.
• Buy Life Insurance
• MSNBC Hot List
• Yellow Pages
• expedia.com
• Shopping
‘Frustrated with the employment possibilities offered in Romania, some of the world’s most talented computer students are exploiting their talents online.’
— INTERNET FRAUD COMPLAINT CENTER
THE FBI TRACED the e-mail to an Internet cafe in Bucharest and helped Romanian police arrest two locals — the latest evidence that computer-savvy Romanians are fast emerging as a bold menace in the shadowy world of cybercrime.
“It’s one of the leading places for this kind of activity,” said Gabrielle Burger, who runs the FBI’s office in Bucharest and is working with Romanian authorities to arrest suspects “and avoid the Sept. 11 of cybercrime.”
Law enforcement documents obtained by The Associated Press portray a loosely organized but increasingly aggressive network of young Romanians conspiring with accomplices in Europe and the United States to steal millions of dollars each year from consumers and companies.
Their specialties: defrauding consumers through bogus Internet purchases, extorting cash from companies after hacking into their systems, and designing and releasing computer-crippling worms and viruses.
Alarmed authorities say the South Pole case underscores the global impact of this new breed of cyber-outlaw.
“Frustrated with the employment possibilities offered in Romania, some of the world’s most talented computer students are exploiting their talents online,” the U.S.-based Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, says in a new report.
CRACKDOWN BEGINS
Computer crime flourished in Romania because the country lacked a cybercrime law until earlier this year, when it enacted what may be the world’s harshest. The new law punishes convicts with up to 15 years in prison — more than twice the maximum for rape.
Varujan Pambuccian, a lawmaker and former programmer, helped draft the new law after Romania’s government realized the nation, which is racing to join the European Union by 2007, was getting a bad online reputation.
Advertisement
“We want a good name for our country,” he said. “I’m very angry that Romania is so well-known for ugly things — for street dogs, street children and hackers.” Pambuccian said there was a noticeable decline in criminal activity in the first three months since the law took effect.
More than 60 Romanians have been arrested in recent joint operations involving the FBI, Secret Service, Scotland Yard, the U.S. ****** Inspection Service and numerous European police agencies.
They include the two suspects implicated in the South Pole extortion attempt last May. Both are awaiting trial. Another Romanian pair was arrested on suspicion of extorting cash from Integrity Media of Mobile, Ala., after information on 30,000 credit card accounts was stolen in March.
Police say several hackers have been convicted, though in lower-profile cases.
MASTERS OF THE SCAM
Although the Russians are better known for online extortion, Romanians have become major players in the scam, a specialty also favored by criminals from Bulgaria, Poland and Slovenia.
Information technology is a Romanian forte dating to the former regime, when the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu saw computers as a way to advance communist ideology. Software piracy took firm hold during the Soviet era, when Romanians too poor to buy licensed software simply copied it.
Today, Romanians get their first computer lessons in nursery school. Universities have top-notch IT programs whose graduates are heavily recruited by Western companies. Microsoft Corp. recently acquired GeCAD, a leading Bucharest data-security firm.
The classic scam: Offer high-end electronics or other goods for sale or auction, take the order, confirm the “shipment” — and simply vanish the moment the consumer has wired payment.
But all that know-how has spawned a dark side: Internet vampires who prey on victims half a world away.
The classic scam: Offer high-end electronics or other goods for sale or auction, take the order, confirm the “shipment” — and simply vanish the moment the consumer has wired payment.
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center said it gets hundreds of complaints daily from defrauded Americans. Many cases trace to Romania, where criminals use Internet cafes to elude capture and avoid leaving a digital trail to their home PCs.
Some have developed Web pages that mimic legitimate sites such as eBay, diverting them into the cyberspace equivalent of a back alley. Buyers think they’re dealing with eBay, but their money ends up in criminal hands and the goods are never shipped.
The most brazen hack into protected corporate databases, where they copy proprietary information and demand cash on threats of publishing the findings on the open Internet.
This past summer, authorities aided by FBI experts arrested six young Romanians in the Transylvania town of Sibiu after they successfully extorted $50,000 from several leading American corporations, which were not identified.
Virgil Spiridon, chief inspector of Romania’s national police and head of a newly launched computer crime task force, said authorities have intercepted online traffic, tracked Internet headers and addresses, searched suspects’ homes and seized hard drives.
ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE LAW
But Mihai Radu of Bucharest-based BitDefender, a data security company, says criminals are smarter than local authorities.
Romanian police asked BitDefender to help track down a 24-year-old university student suspected of creating and releasing a version of the crippling MSBlaster worm in August. The suspect, Dan Ciobanu, has not been arrested but remains under investigation.
“The Romanian police aren’t qualified,” Radu said as young analysts in jeans, T-shirts and sneakers disassembled strings of code to detect possible viruses. “They don’t have the tools, the skills, the software.”
Hacks, Viruses, Scams & Spam
• E-voting flap generates legal threats
• Senate backs limits on e-mail spam
• AT&T aborts plan to block e-mail
• Spam making users wary of e-mail
Pointing up the criminals’ knack for staying one step ahead of the law, FBI documents note that because consumers are reluctant to do business with Romanians, some scammers have found accomplices in other countries. Others pass themselves off as coming from elsewhere.
When police caught on that criminals were getting paid through Western Union transactions, they switched to direct bank-to-bank transfers, which are trickier to trace. Lately, they’ve set up bogus PayPal-style escrow accounts.
In an astonishing show of bravado, some cybercriminals dare even to toy with those tracking them.
Radu recalls logging on to his PC at home, only to watch in horror as the cursor moved independently around the screen and the CD-ROM tray slid in and out as though possessed by a poltergeist.
“I was hacked,” he said. “There’s a fight between the dark side and the light side.”
Gesturing toward BitDefender’s football field-sized room of programmers, he added cryptically: “They can do anything. If they weren’t working for us, who knows what they’d be up to.”
© 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Interesting case but let's NOT start thinking that all Romanians are cyber criminals as that's NOT the case.
Most Viruses and worms and DoS attacks have historically came from the good old USA.
There are ways to fight the DoS attacks with hardware, software and bandwidth bursts...but it's a case-by-case situation.
Using Linux Firewalls instead of Microsoft ISA servers and ANY Microsoft product or related product makes ALL the difference.
STOP using Microsoft products for your Internet Security and these DoS attacks will just about DISSAPPEAR as these DoS attackers and Hacks only Know Microsoft and all it's flaws.
I know of several BIG companies that get DoS attacks everyday but they have NO PROBLEMS as they have studied the attacks and KNOW how to block them.
If allot of books are still having problems they need to EMPLOYEE a better Internet Security company and this will come to an end.
But it seems that some books don't want to admit they need better and more experienced Internet Security Specialists.
Here are some link to some hardware that helps but there are even better units out there:
http://www.toplayer.com/content/products/intrusion_detection/attack_mitigator.jsp
Nokia makes one of the best units out there as well
[This message was edited by Intuition BET on October 28, 2003 at 09:00 AM.]
Most Viruses and worms and DoS attacks have historically came from the good old USA.
There are ways to fight the DoS attacks with hardware, software and bandwidth bursts...but it's a case-by-case situation.
Using Linux Firewalls instead of Microsoft ISA servers and ANY Microsoft product or related product makes ALL the difference.
STOP using Microsoft products for your Internet Security and these DoS attacks will just about DISSAPPEAR as these DoS attackers and Hacks only Know Microsoft and all it's flaws.
I know of several BIG companies that get DoS attacks everyday but they have NO PROBLEMS as they have studied the attacks and KNOW how to block them.
If allot of books are still having problems they need to EMPLOYEE a better Internet Security company and this will come to an end.
But it seems that some books don't want to admit they need better and more experienced Internet Security Specialists.
Here are some link to some hardware that helps but there are even better units out there:
http://www.toplayer.com/content/products/intrusion_detection/attack_mitigator.jsp
Nokia makes one of the best units out there as well
[This message was edited by Intuition BET on October 28, 2003 at 09:00 AM.]
