Word: cybered
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...response units or on big investigations. Still, the job has its excitements. Today, Port and Ward find a stash of heroin and crack cocaine in an old shoe on a ledge above the elevator in a tenement block. Next stop is a friendly call at a café called Cyber Juices. The proprietress welcomes the cops. "Whatever you're doing, you're doing a good job," she says. "I have to give you props for that." Such enthusiasm routinely greets emissaries of Scotland Yard when they travel abroad. The question that will preoccupy Blair during his remaining time...
...forces computers and another 16 belonging to NASA, compromised the safety of Navy ships, stole documents and passwords, triggered the shutdown of a 2000-terminal Washington network, deleted critical files and caused a total of $700,000 worth of damage. For his part, McKinnon admits to being a regular cyber-intruder, but has claimed he was searching for some trace of an alien energy technology he believed the U.S. government had discovered and reverse-engineered but was keeping secret in order to keep oil prices high. He also says he was caught because he used his own email address...
...that he appeared to be looking for something in particular is exactly the kind of pattern that security experts point to as evidence of cyberterror attacks. "This guy was organized and he was looking for specific material," says Jordan, who also blames the "absurd insecurity" of the U.S.'s cyber-defenses. "McKinnon was mainly using the basic technique of an automatic dialer that scans loads of machines until it finds ones that either have their administrator password still set to default or were just left open...
...scale of hacking round the world is notoriously difficult to estimate. By Jordan's own cautious assessment there are between 500 and 2000 hackers with the necessary skills to initiate a serious cyber attack and another 10,000 to 20,000 with the skills to use the pre-existing software to hack lower-grade security systems. And despite the sudden upswing in commercial cyber crime over the last 5 years, "The vast majority," he says, "are only interested in computer systems and the thrill and adventure of breaking into them...
...didn't get one might have a simpler explanation than transatlantic collusion. In 2006, the U.K.'s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit - the one that arrested McKinnon in 2002 - was disbanded. Though there is pressure to rebuild a specialist e-crimes unit, mostly prompted by the soaring cost of cyber fraud, the U.K. government has so far failed to come up with funding. In short, says Jordan, "they don't take this kind of hacking seriously." Which may be why McKinnon's headed to America...