A hacker broke into a wireless carrier's network over at least seven months and read e-mails and personal computer files of hundreds of customers, including the Secret Service agent investigating the hacker, the government said on Wednesday.
The hacker obtained an internal Secret Service memorandum and part of a mutual assistance legal treaty from Russia. The documents contained "highly sensitive information pertaining to ongoing ... criminal cases," according to court records.
The break-in targeted the network for Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile USA, which has 16.3 million customers in the US. It was discovered during a Secret Service investigation, "Operation Firewall," which targeted underground hacker organizations known as Shadowcrew, Carderplanet and Darkprofits.
The hacker was able to view the names and Social Security numbers of 400 customers, all of whom were notified in writing about the break-in, T-Mobile said. It said customer credit card numbers and other financial information never were revealed.
"Safeguarding T-Mobile customer information is a top priority for the company," said a spokesman, Peter Dobrow. He said T-Mobile discovered the break-in late in 2003 and "immediately took steps that prevented any further access to this system."
Court records said the hacker had access to T-Mobile customer information from at least March through last October.
The Secret Service said its agent, Peter Cavicchia, should not have been using his personal handheld computer for government work. Cavicchia, a respected investigator who has specialized in tracking hackers, was a T-Mobile customer who coincidentally was investigating the T-Mobile break-in, according to court documents and a Secret Service spokesman, Jonathan Cherry.
Cavicchia, who won the Secret Service's medal of valor for his actions in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, resigned to work in the private sector. He said he was not asked to leave and said he was cleared during an internal investigation into whether he had improperly revealed sensitive information or violated agency rules.
Nicolas Lee Jacobsen, 21, of Santa Ana, California, a computer engineer, has been charged with the break-in in US District Court in Los Angeles. Court records said an online offer last March, traced to Jacobsen, claimed hackers could look up the name, Social Security number, birth date and passwords for voice mails and e-mails for T-Mobile customers.
Investigators said they traced the hacker's online activities to a hotel in Williamsport, New York, where Jacobsen was staying. Jacobsen, who was arrested in October in California, was released on a US$25,000 bond posted by his uncle, who was ordered to keep his own personal computer locked up so Jacobsen couldn't use it.
The case against Jacobsen was first reported by the Web site Security Focus.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Australia’s opposition party yesterday withdrew election promises to prevent public servants from working from home and to slash more than one in five federal public-sector jobs. Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced his conservative Liberal Party had dropped its pledge that public servants would be required to work in their offices five days a week except in exceptional circumstances. “I think we made a mistake in relation to this policy,” Dutton told Nine Network television. “I think it’s important that we say that and recognize it, and our intention was to make sure that where taxpayers are working hard and their money is
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is leaning into his banking background as his country fights a trade war with the US, but his financial ties have also made him a target for conspiracy theories. Incorporating tropes familiar to followers of the far-right QAnon movement, conspiratorial social media posts about the Liberal leader have surged ahead of the country’s April 28 election. Posts range from false claims he recited a “satanic chant” at a campaign event to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of him in a pool with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “He’s the ideal person to be targeted here, for sure, due to
DISPUTE: Beijing seeks global support against Trump’s tariffs, but many governments remain hesitant to align, including India, ASEAN countries and Australia China is reaching out to other nations as the US layers on more tariffs, in what appears to be an attempt by Beijing to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it is meeting only partial success from countries unwilling to ally with the main target of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying the US was insincere and that it
RSS