Email Security News

Hacker pleads guilty to scientology attack

Monday, October 20, 2008

A teenage hacker has pleaded guilty to federal charges relating to a distributed denial of service attack launched on servers belonging to the church of scientology.

New Jersey resident Dmitriy Guzner, 18, admitted his membership to online group known as Anonymous, which was responsible for a network security attack launched against the religious group's servers in January 2008.

Vnunet.com reports that they are also thought to be linked to the recent email security breach which targeted Sarah Palin's personal mail account.

The scientology attacks were described as a sophisticated co-ordinated effort, which included clogging networks with packets of data, as well as fax transmissions of black pieces of paper to use up toner.

So too, a number of phishing scams were launched against the group, which was founded by science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard.

After bypassing email security, Anonymous posted details of Palin's account activity on the web, leading to an investigation into whether the vice-presidential candidate had abused her powers as governor of Alaska. ADNFCR-1765-ID-18833936-ADNFCR

Related News:

FBI: Law firms and PR agencies high on hacker target lists - 11.18.2009
Using complex email scams, cyber criminals are increasingly targeting sensitive information held by law firms and public relations companies, according to an FBI advisory released earlier this month.

Phishing email takes numerous forms - 11.17.2009
The practice of impersonating authoritative websites and sources in order to convince victims to divulge personal information - known as phishing - has come a long way from the Nigerian "419" scams that popularized the technique in the public mind. Modern phishing is becoming increasingly dangerous in part because attacks can come from a variety of sources.

Email filtering technology working overtime, but spam won't go quietly - 11.16.2009
While modern email filtering systems can block 95 to 99 percent of spam messages, according to Tech Target, mountains of unsolicited email are still delivered every day, accounting for the vast majority of all emails sent.

Phishing scam targets investors, spoofs finance agency - 10.9.2009
The Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA), an independent regulator of brokerages, is warning investors that they may be targeted by a phishing scam through emails claiming to come from the agency.

Phishing scammers leak Windows Live Hotmail passwords to web - 10.6.2009
Hackers posted thousands of passwords from Windows Live Hotmail email accounts to a website over the weekend, in what Microsoft said was the result of a phishing campaign targeting the free webmail service.

View Related Resources
Or
Watch an Online Demo
Or
Have us call you now