Department of Defense Crackdown on Security

The chief commander of the Defense network department authorized a security crackdown. According to the recent NetworkWorld report, dated 16 January 2006, General Charles Croom says, "The attacks come from all over and are improving." He gave a keynote lecture at the Cyber Crime Department of Defense Conference in Clearwater, Florida, from 9 to 14 January 2005. The Defense Cyber Crime Center and the Joint Task Force are sponsoring the event. More than 500 FBI and military computer crime professionals attended the seminar.

The attack was linked to the recent arrest of Jeanson James Ancheta, a "Computer Virus Broker." In a further investigation on the incident, a press release dated 3 Nov 2005 from the Department of Justice stated that "In the first prosecution in the nation, a well-known member of the "underground botmaster" was charged with federal charges in relation to using the "botnets," the armies of computers controlled by the botmaster and used to do the same.

Special operatives with the Federal Bureau of Investigation apprehended Jeanson James Ancheta, 20, of Downey, California this morning. Ancheta was charged yesterday with two separate complots as well as substantive charges of trying harmful computers, injuring the federal national defense computers, accessing protected systems without permission to conduct fraud and money laundering.

The press release describes further details of this scheme that clearly show why the Department of Defense is so interested (see http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/anchetaArrest.htm for more information). "Ancheta was an advertising service provider and was paid a commission by those companies based on the number of installations. Ancheta would change download times and rates of adware systems to escape detection by network managers, security analysts and law enforcement. When Ancheta hosting firms recognized the illicit behavior, Ancheta forwarded his botnet army to another site that he controlled to collect adware. Ancheta caused the sudden installation of adware on around 400,000 hacked machines to generate about $60,000 he got in advertising affiliate revenue. Ancheta used the advertising affiliate's revenue to pay for the various servers needed for his systems, among others.

Ancheta employed malware powerful enough to induce computer infection of the US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake and computers belonging to the US Defence's Defense Information Systems Agency. Both networks are utilized exclusively for the promotion of national defense by the federal government. Ancheta was escorted to the United States District Court in Los Angeles following his arrest this morning at the FBI Field Office in Los Angeles. It is not certain whether he will appear before the court this afternoon or tomorrow. The Ancheta is accused with two counts of conspiracy, two counts of attempted code transmission to a secure computer, two crimes of code transmission to the public computer, five counts of fraud access to a protected computer and five counts of money laundering. Count 17 of the accusation attempts to lift the proceeds and tools of Ancheta's criminal conduct by more than 60,000 $ in cash, automobiles, and computer equipment.

A few recent news. Ancheta pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges against spam and computer malpractice law and fraud, serving four to six years in jail, pursuant to the plea deal - plus severe fines.