Computer Hacking

Forensic Investigator

Module XXV
Forensics in action
 E-mail Hoax

On the eve of new year 2005, many relatives and friends

of Tsunami affected victims were shocked to receive an
email from the Foreign Office Bureau,Thailand.
The email notified them that their relatives had been
killed by the tsunami waves. Incidentally people who
received the email had posted their enquires regarding
their relatives on the message board of Sky News
website.Three recipients of the email enquired with Sky
News and found out that the email was actually a hoax.
An enquiry was conducted regarding the email hoax.
A 40 year old man, Christopher Pierson from
Ruskington, Lincolnshire, UK was convicted of the crime
and sentenced to 6 months of imprisonment.
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 Trade Secret Theft

In February 2004, some portion of Microsoft's source code

for Windows NT and windows 2000 was illegally leaked to
the Internet.
Microsoft sought help of online investigators and the FBI.
In November 2004, a 27 year old Connecticut man ,
William P. Genovese, Jr. was arrested while selling the
leaked source code from a website www.illmob.org.
A person with an identity "illwill" claimed to have
obtained a copy of the leaked source code and was asking
money for downloading the source code from the website’s
FTP server. During the course of investigation the identity
of the person named "illwill" was mapped to William P.
Genovese, Jr.
Special Agent Frank C. Manzi of the FBI and other online
security firms hired by Microsoft conducted the
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 Operation Cyberslam
The website of Weaknees, an e-business firm ,which sells and
upgrades personal digital video recorders faced a “Syn-flood”
DDoS attack on October 6, 2003.
The website was struck by another DDoS attack on October 10,
2003. The website of Weaknees was hosted by Lexiconn. The
second attack on Weaknees affected Lexiconn’s other customers.
As a result of this Lexiconn removed Weaknees as its customer.
Weaknees hired another web hosting company Rackspace at a
higher price but in vain. As a result of the attacks the website of
Weaknees was put off for two weeks.
FBI special agents Cameron Malin and Panico investigated the
case. From several records collected during investigation Jay R.
Echouafni, CEO of Massachusetts-based Orbit Communications
was indicted of the crime.

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