Father's attempt at parental control resulted in hacked German police system

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/011012-fathers-attempt-at-parental-control-254720.html

By Lucian Constantin
IDG News Service
January 10, 2012

The course of events that led to the July 2011 compromise of a computer 
server used by German authorities for GPS surveillance might have 
started with a police official monitoring his daughter's online 
activities, according to reports in German media.

The man, who is a senior official within the German Federal Police in 
Frankfurt, installed some type of spyware on his daughter's computer in 
order to see what she does online, German weekly magazine Der Spiegel 
reported on Sunday.

Later, a friend of the girl, who had ties to the German hacker scene, 
stumbled over the Trojan installed on her computer. To get back at the 
curious father, the hacker friend decided to break into the man's 
personal computer.

Apparently, the police officer had diverted official work-related emails 
to his private computer, which is most likely a serious violation of 
data handling policies. "I expect that this is against the rules and is 
almost always a bad idea," said Chester Wisniewski, a senior security 
advisor at security company Sophos.

[...]


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