Sophisticated, Targeted Breakins Uncovered

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @06:46AM from the don't-answer-job-ads dept.

Ichabod writes "Sophisticated computer criminals stole data from Unisys, Booz Allen, L-3 Communications, Hewlett Packard, and Hughes Network Systems. It sounds like they used a combination of social hacking and undetected low-profile malware (reportedly NTOS.exe) to steal and encrypt sensitive data, and compromised Yahoo accounts to store and retrieve it. An international investigation appears imminent. And yes, unfortunately Reuters calls the criminals 'hackers,' further besmirching the once-revered title."

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Re:The only thing I find strange.. by jojoba_oil · 2007-07-17 06:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, the so-called hackers thought that "Do No Evil" was a command to those using Google's services. As such they went elsewhere.

In all seriousness, I'd be willing to bet that they used compromised Yahoo! accounts for a few reasons: yahoo users are generally less computer-savvy (read: easier to compromise), they probably use gmail accounts themselves so they didn't want to draw attention there, and google has been rumored before to keep e-mails even after being deleted from the account.