Thursday, June 27, 2002

Federal Government Issues Computer-Security Alert for Colleges By ANDREA L. FOSTER The U.S. Department of Education and the Secret Service are urging college administrators to scrutinize their computer systems for illicitly-placed software that secretly records computer users' credit-card numbers and other personal data. The two agencies on Friday issued a security alert to colleges, following announcements earlier last week that Arizona State University and Pasadena City College had confiscated computer equipment infected with the software. Also, a man was arrested last month while allegedly installing the software on a computer at the Pasadena campus. The alert was available at the Web site of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, but was taken down Wednesday afternoon at the request of the Secret Service. The software records keystrokes as they are being typed and saves the information to a file. In some cases, the information can be retrieved from a remote location. The security alert says that the installation of the software has been reported only at colleges. Those who are infecting the computers either physically insert a compact disc into a computer, or send e-mail messages with the software embedded in attachments. The alert lists a number of the programs that the culprits have used, and advises information-technology administrators to use virus-detection tools, since the list "is not necessarily all-inclusive." The following programs are named on the alert: DK2Full.zip, ehks.zip, Ghost Keylogger 2.0, KeyLog25.zip, loggerv0.9.1.zip, Phantom2.zip, SKLOGV1.12, and StarrCommander Pro or STARRCMD.EXE. "The motives of the perpetrators and the number of computer systems compromised remains unknown," the security alert reads. Arizona State University administrators had said the Secret Service told them that the computer crime -- which has also been discovered at colleges in Texas, Florida, and California -- could be connected to the Russian mafia. And the man arrested at Pasadena City College last month was a native of Russia. The security alert does not mention any connection to the Russian mafia. John Large, a Miami-based Secret Service agent who is supervising the investigation, declined to discuss the inquiry. "We can't make any comment at this time. We will when it's done, but we still have a lot of work to do," he said. Background articles from The Chronicle: Computer-Crime Incidents at 2 California Colleges Tied to Investigation Into Russian Mafia (6/24/2002) Russian Mafia May Have Infiltrated Computers at Arizona State and Other Colleges (6/20/2002) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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