Cases of security breaches!

• Hackers:

MAFIA BOY DAMAGES TOP LEADING WEBPAGES!

What was the threat?
The threat which occurred in this scenario was that in 2001 17 year old named Mafiaboy committed a criminal act which cause a tremendous $1.7bn in damages. The criminal act that Mafia boy had done was that he severely damaged major sites, and he admitted that he was involved in several attacks against websites which belonged to different companies

What was the impact?
The impact of this threat was that Mafiaboy had affected the websites of major companies such as Amazon, Yahoo, Dell and Ebay. These sites were bombarded with over thousands of occurring messages which stopped users from accessing the websites for over 5 hours!  This impacted the websites hugely as users were unable to make purchases or view information that they needed to get hold of through these websites, therefore there were loses which were made to companies such as Amazon and Ebay as users were unable to go on the website to purchase items. 
 
How was the issue resolved?
Mafiaboy was sentenced to 8 months in a youth detention centre for the crimes he had commited.

Source: 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1541252.stm

15-YEAR OLD ADMITS HACKING NASA COMPUTERS!

What was the crime?

A crime was commited by a youngster aged only 15 years old! As he hacked the NASA computers causing them to shut down for 21 days, this caused massive distruption as the computers helped to support the international space station. The 15 year old also  invaded a Pentagon weapons computer system to intercept 3,300 e-mails, steal passwords and cruise around like an employee.

What was the impact?

The impact which this caused was tremendous as "NASA responded by shutting down the computers for 21 days to determine the extent of the attack at a cost of $41,000 in contractor labor and replaced equipment." 

This therefore meant that the foolishness of the 15 year old led to a high amount of money being needed in order to replace equipment for the computer network to be operated again. 

How was the issue resolved?

 The 15 year old pleaded guilty to a juvenile deliquency and had been sentenced to ix months in a state detention facility. He became the first young hacker to be incarcerated for computer crimes, the Justice Department in Washington said in a summary. 

“Breaking into someone else’s property, whether it’s a robbery or a computer intrusion, is a serious crime,” said Attorney General Janet Reno.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119423
 
Identity Theft: 

 ABRAHAM ABDALLAH ATTEMPTS IDENTITY THEFT!

What was the crime?

Abraham Abdallah, aged 32 admitted to stealing the identities of America's most richest people to attempt to raid their bank accounts. Abraham used the internet in order to attempt this, he also used a magazine rich list which he used to gain personal data for over 200 people, which included well known famous people such as  film director Steven Spielberg and chat show host Oprah Winfre. 

What was the impact?
The impact of this crime was huge as Abdallah had gained confidential information of famous people and was using the details without their consent. This affected the celebrities of which Abraham Abdallah attempted to raid their bank accounts and steal the money, as they could of had millions of pounds taken away from them if Abdallah was successful at committing this crime.

How was the issue resolved?
The way in which this issue was resolved was that Abraham was taken to court as he did attempt to steal over £14m however was largely unsuccessful but he did please guilty to wire, credit card and identity theft fraud in court. Prosecutors believed that Abraham could of been sent to prison for 11 years for the crime he had committed.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2298661.stm 

SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT HACK:

What was the crime?

Confidential data was hacked by the "Guardians of Peace" or "GOP" from Sony Pictures Entertainment, this data belong to the company and included personal information about Sony Pictures employees and their families, e-mails between employees, information about executive salaries at the company, copies of unreleased Sony films, and other information.  The demand from the hackers was that they wanted the release of the film ‘The Interview’ to be cancelled as this was about a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un; it was reported by US intelligence offers that the attack was sponsored by North Korea. However, North Korea has denied all responsibility, and some cybersecurity experts have proposed that current or former Sony employees may have been involved in the hack.

What was the impact?

The impact of the Sony Pictures hacking attack was huge as private data not only about employees but also celebrity has been leaked. For example, celebrity gossip and embarrassing details about Hollywood and film industry business affairs have been hacked and this included private email messages, released by the computer criminals. Among the information revealed in the e-mails was that Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai pressured Sony Pictures co-chairwoman Amy Pascal to "soften" the assassination scene in the upcoming Sony film The Interview.

Has the issue been resolved?

As the hacking attack by GOP has just happened there has been no final outcome on the situation. However in December 2014, Sony requested that the media stop covering the hack and they also threatened legal action if the media did not conform. In addition to this, Sony then threatened legal action against Twitter if it did not suspend accounts of people who posted the hacked material. These threats can result to legal action being made against anyone who attempts to release the data.

KEVIN DAVID MITNICK

Kevin David Mitnick has been seen as a threat to public companies as he is an American computer security consultant and a hacker. Mitnick hacked into public companies to steal confidential information that was only for the use of the business. He had a record from the age of 15, as he used social engineering to bypass the punch card system used in LA bus systems, this allowed him to have free bus rides at no expense to himself.

Shortly after this act, at the age of 16 Mitnick gained unauthorized access to a computer network called DEC and then used their software to copy exactly what they had. Not only did he do this to one company but he carried on doing it to several companies by gaining access and stealing files. This act was ongoing for several years as David Mitnick didn’t ever get caught as no major damage had occurred but he carried on harassing companies for many years.

After all the events that did occur by Mitnick he was given a prison sentence of 12 months and three years supervised release, however towards the end of the three years release Mitnick commited another hack as he hacked into pacific bell voice mail computers. As a result of this hack he had done he was given a prison sentence for another two and a half years.