A couple of incidents relevant to the work I have been doing.

Much of the past two weeks has been clean-up and prevention for my clients, along with a new server for one, and here are two articles. One from GW's IT expert, and another about a hospital- hit very hard.

The rise of the 'bot': how your PC could be hijacked by terrorists and criminals
Computers hacked into and used for extortion, money laundering and 'nation state attacks'? The danger is real, George Bush's IT expert tells Clayton Hirst

15 May 2005

The PC in your home could be part of a complex international terrorist network. Without you realising it, your computer could be helping to launder millions of pounds, attacking companies' websites or cracking confidential government codes.

This is not the stuff of science fiction or a conspiracy theory from a paranoid mind, but a warning from one of the world's most-respected experts on computer crime. Dr Peter Tippett is chief technology officer at Cybertrust, a US computer security company, and a senior adviser on the issue to President George Bush. His warning is stark: criminals and terrorists are hijacking home PCs over the internet, creating "bot" computers to carry out illegal activities.

And,

Computer hacking strikes hospital

HEALTH CARE: Medical center lost line of credit, but now starting to profit again after months in the red

BY GINA CZARK
gczark@nwitimes.com
219.933.3234

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Saturday, May 14, 2005 12:50 AM CDT

A computer hacker erased Illiana Surgery and Medical Center's entire computer system -- all medical records, software and every piece of data -- leading to rumors of the medical center's impending demise as bills went unpaid.

With expenses on the rise from the new hospital and claims not being received because of the computer hacking in December, Illiana's bank, National City, got nervous, Illiana President and CEO Dr. Vijay Gupta said. Almost immediately, the bank withdrew a $6 million loan and told Illiana it had to be repaid immediately, he said.

Here, is the Google search on Peter Tippett and several on Cybertrust, are found, but you need to dig a bit deeper to get a real history.

The advice is always the same though, lock your doors with a good firewall, anti-virus, anti-trojan and worm tools. If you do not know how to do these things, then find someone who does, listen, and implement the suggestions. Other helpful solutions are alternative browsers and operating systems (but both have problems too).

These provide no guarantees, but if you keep things up to date, you can be sure that you have done a good job protecting you and your family.

Now, if we could just hunt them down and put a bullet in several of them...

--WP