Cops threaten to raid newspaper offices over Davos hacking

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://thestar.com.my/tech/story.asp?file=/2001/2/16/technology/16davos&sec=technology

Friday, February 16, 2001

ZURICH: Police have threatened to raid the offices of a Swiss
newspaper that published confidential information on top political and
business leaders obtained from anti-globalisation computer hackers,
the paper said Thursday.

Andreas Durisch, editor-in-chief of the SonntagsZeitung newspaper
(http://www.sonntagszeitung.ch), said Geneva prosecutors had warned
they would issue a formal search warrant for the paper's Zurich
headquarters.

He said this followed the newspaper's refusal to hand over a CD-ROM
obtained from the hackers, who gained access to data on 27,000
prominent figures linked to the World Economic Forum.

Officials were not immediately available for comment.

Durisch said the newspaper would resist the demands to release the
information.

"For us, the top priority is to give 100% protection to our sources,''
Durisch said.

The hackers discovered former US President Bill Clinton's forum
password and actor Dustin Hoffman's e-mail address, said the
newspaper, which did not print the confidential numbers.

It said other stolen information included Microsoft chairman Bill
Gates' e-mail address, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' telephone number
and a credit card number of Pepsi-Cola chief executive Peter M.
Thompson.

The hackers, calling themselves the Virtual Monkeywrench group, said
the information was easy to obtain.

The Geneva-based World Economic Forum has accused SonntagsZeitung of
"trafficking in stolen material'' and filed a legal complaint with
Geneva prosecutors.

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