David Kernell, the Tennessee college student who allegedly broke into Governor Sarah Palin's Yahoo! mail account has pleaded not guilty to three new felony charges. Kernell now faces charges of intentional access without authorization; fraud; unlawful electronic transmission of material outside the state; and attempts to conceal records to impede an FBI investigation. If he is found guilty on all counts, Kernell could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to US $250,000. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/09/palin_hacker_recharged/ http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2238234/student-pleads-guilty-sarah
[Editor's Note (Schultz): I hate to think of someone going to prison for 20 years as the result of a cyberprank, yet at the same time the events surrounding this story point directly to the risks individuals incur when they engage in unauthorized computing activity.
(Skoudis): Given this story and the one about Senator Coleman below, both associated with politics, we seem to have entered the age of hacking for political advantage by embarrassing an adversary or drying up their contributions through a breach. You know, ironically, I fully accept the militarization of cyber space, but somehow the politicization of the hack just doesn't sit well with me. If this continues and grows, having our politics distorted by breaches would be a scary thing.]
"Tennessee college student," Russian-style:
GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS AND HOMELAND SECURITY
--Russian Youth Group Member Boasts of Role in 2007 Estonian DDoS Attacks (March 11 & 12, 2009)
A member of a Kremlin-backed youth group called Nashe has said that he was an active participant in the May 2007 distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks on computer networks in Estonia. Konstantin Goloskokov defended the attacks as "cyber defense;" the attacks were launched in retaliation for a decision made in Estonia to move a memorial statue for the Red Army. Goloskokov said his group acted independently and did not launch the attacks on orders from the government.
ISC: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5974
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/11/russian_admits_estonian_ddos/
*Hack the Senator, and while you're at him, hack every democratic activist who exercised their civil rights by backing him:
--Wikileaks eMails Sen. Coleman Campaign Donors About Data Leak (March 11 & 12, 2009)
Wikileaks.org has posted information it says was leaked from the campaign web site of Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, a candidate for the US Senate. The data include information belonging to about 51,000 Coleman campaign donors and supporters; 4,721 of those also had several digits of their credit card numbers exposed. Wikileaks said it published the information to substantiate claims that the website had suffered a data leak earlier this year. Legal counsel for Coleman maintains that the data were stolen, and that the campaign will "fully pursue all legal options available." Wikileaks has emailed all the donors whose information is in the files to let them know about the breach.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/12/colman_database_leaked/
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4456
http://www.gantdaily.com/news/35/ARTICLE/45996/2009-03-11.html
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/03/coleman_campaig.php
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