Palin E-mail Hacker Hit With Additional Charges
David Kernell, the son of a Democratic Tennessee legislator, who was indicted for hacking into Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account during the last year’s Presidential campaign has been hit with additional charges.
The new charges are fraud, unlawful electronic transmission of material outside Tennessee and attempts to conceal records to impede an FBI investigation.
Three more federal charges have been filed against a University of Tennessee student charged with hacking into the personal e-mail account of Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential nominee.David Kernell, the son of a Democratic Tennessee legislator, pleaded not guilty to all charges Monday, and a magistrate agreed to push back his trial from May to October.
Kernell allegedly gained access to Palin’s account in September by correctly answering a series of personal security questions.
The new counts are fraud, unlawful electronic transmission of material outside Tennessee and attempts to conceal records to impede an FBI investigation.
H/T: Michelle Malkin.
Previous:
- Sarah Palin’s Private E-mail Account Hacked
- Palin E-mail Hack Follow-up
- A Quick Update on the Palin E-mail Hacking Case
- Newsflash: Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted
Microsoft Patches Critical IE Bug
Microsoft has released a special out of cycle update for its Internet Explorer web browser. The update, described in Microsoft’s security bulletin MS08-078, fixes a flaw present in all available versions of the popular browser, including IE5.01, IE6, IE7 and IE8 Beta 2.
Computerworld has more on the story here.
On a related note Mozilla and Opera Software both released updates for their respective web browsers today.
AP: Bad Economy Helping Internet Scammers Recruit ‘Mules’
From the Associated Press via Examiner.com:
Bad economy helping Web scammers recruit ‘mules’
By Jordan Robertson, The Associated Press, December 9, 2008
SAN JOSE, Calif. -
The worsening economy appears to be helping computer crooks with one of their toughest tasks: tricking people into opening their homes and bank accounts and becoming “mules” for laundering money or stolen goods.
The scams themselves aren’t new. They’re pitched in spam e-mails as “work-at-home” jobs that promise excellent part-time money for helping companies pay clients in other countries. The victims are asked to open new bank accounts in their names, agree to accept anonymous payments into those accounts, and forward those payments by way of money transfer, usually to locations in Eastern Europe.
The scam is classic money laundering with an Internet twist. The money is generally real, and the middle man is promised a cut. What those middle men may not know is they’re trafficking in ill-gotten gains and helping criminals pay each other while disguising the source. And the mules are often the ones at the greatest risk of arrest.
Savvy computer users usually identify this as a scam. But security researchers say more people are willing to take a risk on the come-ons as unemployment rises and the volume of the mule e-mails increases.
“When people are scared of a job going away, or they’re worried about having money to pay bills, they might look at something like this in a different light than when things are rosy and great,” said David Marcus, McAfee Inc.’s director of security research and communications. Read the rest…
As Robertson mentions this isn’t a new scam it been going for quite a while now. Unfortunately as the economy worsens more people a willing to respond to these types of come-ons.
The bottom line is pretty simple: if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
For more information on internet fraud and scams check out Looks Too Good To Be True.com. They have a wealth of information on various types of fraud and alerts on new scams.
Other Resources:
Julie Amero’s Four Year Nightmare is Finally Over
Alex Eckelberry has the details.
After 4 years and 2 months, Julie Amero is now free.
You’ll recall that Julie Amero was convicted of 4 felony counts, each count carrying a maximum of 10 years, for exposing school children to pornography.
The reality is that Julie, a 40–year old, pregnant substitute teacher, found herself in a storm of popups and didn’t have any idea as to what was going on, or how to fix the situation.
There were numerous technical errors made during the trial, and I led a team of forensic investigators into analyzing a copy of the hard drive. We ultimately published a report which was used in Julie’s original conviction being overturned, for a new trial last June (I am seeing if I can get the report published).
This afternoon, at an empty Norwich Superior Court, Julie pled to the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, in a deal negotiated by her pro-bono attorney, William Dow.
Her fine was a $100 charge, and her Connecticut teaching credentials are revoked (Julie told me she really doesn’t care, that she has no plans ever to teach in that state again).
Brain Krebs has background on Julie’s case here.
The fact the Julie was convicted of anything is sad testament to judicial system. She was put into a no win situation by school system that failed do the most basic risk mitigation steps and investigators and prosecutors who don’t technology or malware. If not for the efforts of Mr. Eckelberry and others in the anti-malware industry Ms. Aremo would undoubtedly be in prison today.
Oh Happy Day
A few weeks ago I published a short post on the demise of Atrivo (aka Intercage). Today Washington Post technology columnist Brian Krebs brings word that McColo Corp., a Northern California hosting firm that had been identified by the computer security community as home base for machines responsible for coordinating the sending of roughly 75 percent of all spam each day, has been taken offline.
Host of Internet Spam Groups is Cut Off
Spam Drops After Internet Providers Disconnect a California Hosting Firm
By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 12, 2008; 7:16 PMThe volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide dropped drastically today after a Web hosting firm identified by the computer security community as a major host of organizations allegedy engaged in spam activity was taken offline, according to security firms that monitor spam distribution online.
While its gleaming, state-of-the-art, 30-story office tower in downtown San Jose, Calif., hardly looks like the staging ground for what could be called a full-scale cyber crime offensive, security experts have found that a relatively small firm at that location is home to servers that serve as a gateway for a significant portion of the world’s junk e-mail.
The servers are operated by McColo Corp., which these experts say has emerged as a major U.S. hosting service for international firms and syndicates that are involved in everything from the remote management of millions of compromised computers to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and designer goods, fake security products and child pornography via email.
But the company’s web site was not accessible today, when two Internet providers cut off MoColo’s connectivity to the Internet, security experts said. Immediately after McColo was unplugged, security companies charted a precipitous drop in spam volumes worldwide. E-mail security firm IronPort said spam levels fell by roughly 66 percent as of Tuesday evening.
Spamcop.net, another spam watch dog, found a similar decline, from about 40 spam e-mails per second to around 10 per second. Read the rest…
Score one for the good guys… Of course I’m sure we’ll all miss those ads for male enhancement products in our inbox… 
Newsflash: Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted
Fox News is reporting that 20-year-old David Kernell of Knoxville, Tenn., has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the private e-mail account of Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
Kernell is the son of Tenn. democratic state Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, he turned himself in to federal authorities for arrest today.
Michelle Malkin has more here.
Update: Allahpundit asks:
“Any legal eagles (or techies, I guess) want to speculate on why it took the grand jury an extra three weeks to return the indictment? The last time I wrote about this, the FBI reportedly already had the IP logs in hand and had searched his dorm for corroborating evidence. What extra evidence would they have needed to produce to nudge the case over the line of probable cause?”
As a former cop and a techie there’s several reasons, first this is a high profile case that involves a vice presidential candidate… You can not make mistakes, everything has to be done “by the book”, all the T’s crossed and I’s dotted. Second the server logs and IP adresses can get you to the suspects front door but it’s forensic analysis of his or her computer that will established his or her guilt or innocence. Finally, cyber forensics is time consuming process.
The FBI and Secret Service more then likely had a short list of suspects within a day or two… Connecting the all the dots to identify a “prime suspect” and establish probable cause for a search warrant takes days or even weeks. Ditto for conducting a proper forensic analysis of the suspects computer(s) and writing all the reports. All in all I think the FBI and Secret Service handled this case pretty well.
Previous:
- Sarah Palin’s Private E-mail Account Hacked
- Palin E-mail Hack Follow-up
- A Quick Update on the Palin E-mail Hacking Case
Sarah Palin & Barack Obama: Tops In Spam
Secure Computing released a new report on spam trends Friday, among the reports findings, spam citing Gov. Sarah Palin topped her opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, by a ratio of 5 to 4 during the month of September.
In a top-of-the-ticket comparison, spam using the name of Sen. Barack Obama easily topped the use of his opponent, Sen. John McCain, by 6 to 1.
I’m not sure this a race either candidate wants to win though. It just goes show that spammers are continuing to exploit current events to get their message out.
The full report titled “Major Spam Trends, October 2008″ is available from Secure Computing’s web site.
Atrivo/Intercage Down For The Count?
Being in the technology business this is something near and dear to my heart… It appears that Atrivo, also know as Intercage is finally down for the count.
Gadi Evron has a post here. Brian Krebs has backgound here.
Sarah Palin’s Private E-mail Account Hacked – Updated
Filed under: Crime, Internet, Politics, Security, Technology
Scroll For Updates…
Network World and Wired are reporting that Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo mail account has been hacked and that screenshots of messages have been posted on various web sites.
From Wired:
Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted on the internet Wednesday.
The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.
The cache of stolen data contains five screenshots from Palin’s account, including the text of an e-mail exchange with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.
Another screenshot shows Palin’s inbox and a third shows the text of an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
Hacking into someones e-mail is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison and it appears that the FBI in coordination with the Secret Service has begun an investigation into this incident. I’m a little fuzzy on the law here but I’m reasonably certain that sites like WikiLeaks and Gawker that published the stolen information could face prosecution along with the hackers.
Update: The McCain Campaign has released the following statement:
“This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law, the matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”
Update: The FBI has confirmed that an investigation is underway. From CNN’s Political Tracker Blog:
FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska confirms to CNN an investigation is underway.
“We are aware of the allegations and we are coordinating with Secret Service as far as the allegation that someone has hacked into Governor Palin’s personal e-mail account,” he said. “We are going to be working a joint investigation with Secret Service on this.”
Brian Hale, an FBI spokesman in Washington, also confirms the FBI has been contacted about the incident. Two federal law enforcement sources say the FBI and Secret Service would have concurrent jurisdiction normally on a matter such as this, but it remains to be seen if the Secret Service will take the lead on the investigation because Palin is a protectee.
Update: The always indispensable Michelle Malkin has the story behind the story:
This afternoon, I mentioned an infamous group of hackers whose Internet bulletin board was the gathering place for those who bragged about and publicized the Sarah Palin private e-mail hacking.
A tech-savvy reader who monitors the hackers’ site e-mailed me a detailed explanation of how it went down, who was responsible, and how someone with a conscience warned a friend of the Palin family of the crime (language warning):
As an aside… This would be a good time to change your passwords. A strong password should be at least 8 characters and include letters, numbers, and at least one special character. It should also be easy to remember but not easily guessed.
Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin & Ace.
For Additional Updates see:
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