Daily News Political Hackers A Growing Threat By Ian Stokell November 06, 2000

A growing risk for large global companies are hackers with political agendas, said security firm Control Risks Group, at the roll out of its annual "Risk Map 2001" survey.

Reuters quoted Control Risks Group's Kent Anderson as saying, "The methods they are using are in their infancy," but that, "We're going to start seeing this sort of thing for a whole range of issues." The survey listed 12 countries as representing "extreme" political and security risks to multinational companies, up from five in 1997: Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville and Democratic Republic of Congo), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Russia (Chechnya), Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka (north and northeast) and Sudan.

The political cyber-threat was highlighted in the British-based company's Risk Map 2001 survey of perceived dangers to corporate clients, where Internet-related activism was identified as bringing the methods of guerrilla theater, grass-roots organizing and graffiti to cyberspace. Operations identified include espionage, Web page defacements, "denial-of-service" attacks and virus infections," said Reuters.

Anderson reportedly told a press conference that "hacktivism" can be traced back to the 1994 Zapatista guerrilla uprising for greater democracy and Indian rights in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, but that now, "hacktivists" are increasingly focusing on companies rather than governments.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.

http://www.computeruser.com/news/00/11/06/news8.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), November 06, 2000