A ruling in favor of Marcone Supply has been upheld by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court. The ruling bars competitor 1st Source Servall from soliciting business from 640 of Marcone’s customers. The Cheektowaga company claims two of its former employees used inside information to lure clients away to Servall when tasked with establishing three new Northeast distribution sites. Marcone claims the two Buffalo-are executives, Mark J. Creighton and Karl P. Rosenhahn, stole a confidential list of 3,300 Marcone customers then tried to cover up the theft by destroying evidence.
MI5 wrongly collected subscriber data on 134 telephone numbers as a result of a software error, according to interception of communications commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy’s annual report.
A spreadsheet formatting error caused the service to apply for data on the identity of telephone numbers ending in 000, rather than the actual last three digits. “The subscriber data acquired had no connection or relevance to any investigation or operation being undertaken by the Security Service,” writes Kennedy.
He adds that the resulting material was destroyed, the formatting fault fixed and numbers are now checked manually before MI5 requests subscriber data from communications providers.
MI5 also acquired data on the histories of 927 internet protocol addresses without authorisation from a sufficiently senior officer, of GD3 rank or above. This was due to an “incorrect setting on the system used by the Security Service,” according to Kennedy, although the requests themselves were necessary and proportionate. MI5 has corrected the setting on its systems.
Overall, Kennedy reported that public authorities submitted 552,550 requests for communications data during 2010, and the number is increasing by about 5 per cent a year. He could not give a precise reason for the growth, but said “it is indicative of the growth in communications technology”, with “certain police forces” increasing their use.
Nearly two-thirds of requests for communications data – about communications rather than contents – were for subscriber data. This was usually part of an attempt to find the owner of a mobile phone. About a quarter of requests were for traffic data.
Sir Peter Gibson, the intelligence services commissioner, also published his annual report. Having been granted powers under the Identity Cards Act to monitor use of the National Identity Register by intelligence services, he reported that he is “not aware of any acquisition, storage and use made” by such organisations before the register was destroyed earlier this year.
He collected statistics on the number of warrants and authorisations issued to the security and intelligence agencies or armed forces, but these have only been included in a confidential annex. He defended the secrecy by saying publication would “assist those unfriendly to the UK were they able to know the extent of the work” of those agencies.
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New Delhi, Jun 21 (PTI) BJP today said the reported case of bugging of the office of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was a “serious” issue, especially as it has occurred at a time when several high-profile cases of financial scams have come to light.
“It is a serious matter. If what has come to light is true then it needs to be investigated. This has come at a time when there are so many cases of financial irregularities and scams,” BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
He wondered as to who could be behind such an act and alluded to somebody in government having an interest in bugging the Finance Minister”s office.
“Pranab Mukherjee is no. 2 in the Cabinet. Who is bugging its own ministers. It needs to be investigated. This raises a lot of disturbing questions,” Naqvi said.
In reply to another question on differences between the government panel- headed by Mukherjee- and civil society members of the Joint Drafting Committee on Lokpal Bill, Naqvi said, “This has become a war of words between those who want a Lokpal Bill and the others who are for a Jokepal.”
He maintained that BJP will take a call on the proposed all-party meeting on Lokpal when it receives an invitation from the government.
“We are against corruption and want that strong steps are taken to end it,” Naqvi said.
BANGALORE, INDIA: The recent spate of cyber attacks have raised questions about the security of government and corporate computer systems, and the ability of law enforcement to track down hackers.
Here’s a breakdown of the different types of cyber assaults, from “hactivists” to serious criminals.
DISSIDENT HACKERS SEEKING MAXIMUM PUBLICITY
The Lulz Security and Anonymous groups have broken into computer servers to steal data that they publish on the Internet to embarrass their targets. Examples of this include LulzSec hacking into Fox TV’s “X Factor” contestant database, or breaking into FBI affiliate Infraguard and publishing its user base.
So-called hactivists also use distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, in which they get supporters to crash the websites of their targets by overwhelming the servers with traffic. The Anonymous group launched DOS attacks against Visa and MasterCard because the group thought the companies were hostile to Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange.
CYBER ATTACKS FOR FINANCIAL GAIN
Primarily based on getting financial information, such as payment card data or bank account details, perpetrators tend to keep their attacks secret because the data is more valuable if victims do not know it has been stolen.
Citigroup disclosed that unknown hackers in May had stolen information from 360,083 credit card accounts in North America, in what was the most significant known direct assault on a financial institution.
These attacks can come from just about anywhere, although Western security experts have said that Russia and China deliberately turn a blind eye to this kind of activity from within their borders, provided it is not targeted domestically.
GOVERNMENT OR STATE-BACKED ATTACKS
Hacking by governments or state-sponsored groups is usually aimed at stealing classified information, such as military secrets or other prized data. Security experts have cited attacks on the International Monetary Fund and Google Inc’s email service as recent examples.
There is often finger-pointing at Russia and China after such attacks, although experts suspect other nations including the United States of using this technique more quietly.
There are also occasional suspected state-backed DDOS attacks, such as on Estonia and Georgia in 2007.
FROM VIRTUAL NETWORKS TO THE REAL WORLD
These are cyber attacks aimed at causing actual physical damage, such as by hacking into industrial computer controls to destroy military assets or public infrastructure.
The Stuxnet virus, which Iran has said was used to attack computers at its Bushehr nuclear reactor, is the only case so far that security experts widely agree fits into this category.
NEW DELHI: In his first remarks on the issue of bugging of Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s North Block office, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram did not know about it.
During his interaction with five senior editors, Dr. Singh replied in the negative when asked if the complaint of bugging went through the Home Minister.
“No. This was on a need-to-know principle,” Dr. Singh said. He admitted that there was a complaint that the office of the Finance Minister was bugged. “I asked the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to do a thorough check. The IB reported back to me that there was nothing of the sort,” Dr. Singh said.
The Prime Minister’s reply comes as a surprise because the Home Ministry which exercises control over IB had been completely kept out of the loop. Though both Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Chidambaram have dismissed insinuations about any mistrust between them, it is surprising why Mr. Mukherjee, number two in the UPA government, chose to keep the Home Minister in the dark and went straight to the Prime Minister last year.
As part of the routine exercise also, the Home Minister was entitled to know about the sensitive issue rather than being kept out.
Mr. Chidambaram, in a recent interview to NDTV, had said that he came to know about the bugging incident from newspaper reports.
