Unhappy New Year Due To Hacker Attacks, Warns FBI

The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) division of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned that the New Year
may bring with it a spate of hacker attacks.

The attacks, the NIST warning says, stem from the fact that the
lengthy holiday period may allow hackers to further refine their
hacking techniques, just as they did over last year's holiday season.

This year, however, it could be worse, the agency says, because the
tools at hackers' disposal are more sophisticated, coupled with the
development of distributed denial of service (DDOS) tools over the
last 10 months.

Because of the DDOS issue, the NIPC says e-commerce sites should take
extra care during this holiday period, so as to secure their systems
as far as possible against attack.

Research conducted by the NIPC and other FBI divisions, has actually
logged a modest increase in the frequency of hacker attacks in the
last few weeks.

The majority of these intrusions, the agency says, have occurred on
Microsoft Windows NT systems, although Unix based operating systems
have been victimized as well.

The NIPC advises that it knows that hackers are exploiting at least
three known system vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access and
download propriety information.

And, despite the fact that these vulnerabilities are not new, this
recent activity warrants additional attention by system
administrators.

In most cases, the center says, the hacker activity had been ongoing
for several months before the victim became aware of the intrusion.

"The NIPC strongly recommends that all computer network systems
administrators check relevant systems and apply updated patches as
necessary," said its statement.

"Specific emphasis should be placed on systems related to e-commerce
or e-banking/financial business," it added, noting that remote data
access security issues must be monitored by IT management.

The NIPC's Web site is at http://www.nipc.gov.