Hacker Indicted For Stealing Funds. Ethical Hackers May Detect Flaws And Improve Security

By Author: Peter Martin
Total Articles: 211
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Off late, cybercrime has become a recurring occurrence. Hackers identify the security lapses in computer usage, software upgrades and network infrastructure to gain unauthorized access, steal confidential information and installing malicious malware. The sensitive information may include user name and passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers and contact details and privileged company information among many others. Cybercriminals use the information obtained for their own benefit or sell them to underground peers or third parties. Recently, a federal court indicted a person on charges of unauthorized access and wire fraud. Lack of is one of the common factors responsible for negligent attitude towards security among employees.

The offence was reportedly committed by a person named Jeremey Parker by hacking the computer network of SWReg., Inc, a subsidiary of Digital River, Inc. maintains the royalty payments due to software developers on behalf of payments due to the parent company. Software developers have the facility to log in and check their royalty balances, request check payments and payment transfers ...
... to their bank or paypal accounts. Parker reportedly gained unauthorized access to one of the systems of SWReg. and transferred around $2,74,000 to his account. Usually, organizations recruit ethical hackers to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities and security gaps in the IT security apparatus. In this case, the offender now faces a maximum prison term of 20 years for unauthorized access and 10 year for hacking.

Rising threat profile in the cyberspace makes it inevitable for organizations to increase their IT security budget. However, many small and medium sized organizations find it difficult to upgrade their IT security infrastructure in tune with the changes in the threat scenario. Such organizations can devise an IT policy, which facilitates compliance of regulatory requirements and then allows self paced upgrade to the meet the challenges of Internet-crime.