Argentine Sites Easy Targets, Says Hacker 8:29 a.m. ET (1329 GMT) February 24, 2000 By Lucila Sigal

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 23  Argentine Web sites are an easy target for hackers, according to an Argentine accused by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation of hacking into U.S. Navy and NASA space agency Internet sites. "About 45 percent of Argentine Web sites are without any protection although there's growing consciousness about security," 26-year-old Julio Cesar Ardita told Reuters in an interview this week.

Ardita, who now runs his own software security company, came to prominence in 1996 when the FBI used Internet wiretap software to track the man who allegedly hacked into the U.S. Navy and NASA sites. No arrest was made.

The security issue has surfaced because an Internet revolution is under way in Latin America, despite low wages, sometimes unreliable postal services and low use of bank accounts and credit cards.

In a sign of the enthusiasm, many more cybercafes, where patrons can access the Internet for $1 to $3 an hour, have sprung up in countries like Argentina, Bolivia or Chile than in North America.

With South America's second-biggest economy, after Brazil's, Argentina is emerging as a regional software and high tech leader, with an educated workforce and plenty of Internet start-ups .

Some 500,000 Argentines are connected to the Internet and another 700,000 use other people's accounts to surf the Web to buy goods from about 150 domestic companies with Web sites. U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley was in Argentina last week to establish working groups to improve e-commerce.

But the lack of security threatens to spoil this opportunity in Argentina because it has made many Latin Americans reticent about buying online, according to U.S. consultant Forrester Research.

"Hackers try to steal personal data like names, addresses, credit card numbers and access numbers. In a lot of cases, the hackers are employees or ex-employees of those companies," Ardita said.

Ardita said Argentina "is at a good level in terms of software security," on a par with Latin America as a whole but below average compared with the rest of the world. The United States is the leader in Internet security, he added.

While more security software is becoming available to companies that sell online, there are not enough employees trained in installing such programmes, he said.

And even the world's main Web sites are vulnerable to hacker attacks, he noted, citing the disruption of several major U.S. Web sites this month by hackers who blocked access by other users, effectively shutting them down and causing millions of dollars in lost revenues. http://www.foxnews.com/vtech/022400/argentine.sml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 24, 2000

Answers

The posting is excellent, but I want to point out something. The hacker/cracker community has never made any attempt to disguise security issues. The emergence of script kiddie activity has provided entertainment and an area of academic interest to old fogies such as myself and apparently has annoyed to some extent the more serious crackers who have regarded defacement as an art form.These factions are social, sociable and open, if somewhat rambunctious and given to crowing: this leaves a group who have seized upon the "sploits" of the brasher actors to forge and implement a potent weapon. As political topology and global mores evolve, this "tertium quid" has also evolved into a potent and formidable foe. We do not know his allegiance, his motivation or his location. We do not where he has been, or for whom he has labored. I remember when internet addresses became "de riguer"-the common phrase for the individual without net access then was "a person of no account". Well, I do believe that the time has come to eat those words. Let's pray that our "person of no account" who has penetrated our defenses is well disposed and motivated to enhance the common good. Odd that the "Establishment" should be so very anxious to find that TQ account now: I think we'd all be willing to pay maintenance costs on it if we only knew how to locate it..... mike

-- mike in houston (mmoris67@hotmail.com), February 24, 2000.