Information about protecting yourself from identity theft.

Adrian Lamo. Friend or Foe?

Hacker steals information from New York Times...

22-year-old Adrian Lamo has gained a great deal of notoriety in his young years for publicly exposing holes and leaks in the security systems of many large corporations. Companies Lamo has successfully hacked into include Blogger, Excite@Home, and Yahoo. Lamo also exposed security holes in the intranet of WordldCom, which thereby threatened the security of Citicorp, Bank of America, JP Morgan, and more.

Disturbingly, Lamo has been able to do most of his hacking using nothing but an everyday Web browser. In doing so, he had access to the personal information of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.

Up until recently, the companies Lamo has hacked into have accepted his help in fixing their security breaches rather than press charges. His luck finally ran out when he hacked into the database of the New York Times.

Lamo, who has no qualms admitting to what he did in his most recent escapade, states that he was able to gain access to the telephone numbers, social security numbers and other personal information of hundreds of people through the New York Times database. Among these people were Warren Beatty, Rush Limbaugh, James Baker, Robert Redford and Jimmy Carter and several New York Times employees.

Using the information he gained from the New York Times database, Lamo was then able to access the accounts of the paper’s employees and change their passwords. He was also able to set up an account for himself.

The New York Times considers Lamo’s exploits to be no laughing matter. They have pressed charges against Lamo. Whether what Lamo did, and has done, was purely for the fun of it or for some noble cause, it is still frightening to know that the information was so easily accessible.

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