There are 5,500 net vulnerabilities that could be used theoretically
to launch an attack, but only 80 or 90 are being
used, says Mr [Peter]
Tippett [founder and chief technical officer at
TruSecure].
Only 16 of 4,200 of vulnerabilities actually turned into attacks last
year.
. . .
A separate team at TruSecure has a more mysterious job. It is the
elite group of hacker infiltrators, codename IS/Recon (Information
Security Reconnaissance).
Their daily job is to see what the bad guys say to each other and
what they claim to have
done by gaining respect and building online
relationships with groups with names like Hackweiser and G-force
Pakistan, Mr Tippett explains.
. . .
Pieces of information about groups and individuals are put together
like a giant jigsaw in TruSecure's mammoth database, nicknamed the
.
It graphically shows the big players, where they live, who they know,
who they hate, what tools they have developed, and even whether they
have a cat.
. . .
IS/Recon gave the FBI over 200 documents about the Melissa virus
author after they were asked to get closer to suspects.
Although they did not know his real name, they knew his three aliases
and had built a detailed profile of the author.
The team's work also helped identify the author of the high-profile
LoveSan virus.
We could say what dorm and what floor the author of the LoveSan virus
was on, Mr Tippett says.
Unfortunately, there are very few countries that have laws good
enough to follow through if someone turns out to be coming from
there.
