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>> ZoneAlarm blocked several attacks (on one day 3 attacks).<<
It is incredible how many illegal access attempts I'm getting from all around the world. All were blocked. Below is a segment of my log. Anyone using ADSL or cable without a firewall is asking for trouble. According to a federal report, the fastest growing crime is "Identity theft" where your SSN and other important means of identification are used by others to purchase items at your expense. With loads of unpaid invoices, your credit rating can tank in days, making your life miserable. Get with it....get a firewall.
date Colorado my from from ISP location ISP WHOIS
time port IP address port
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3/1/00 24.42.85.95 Toronto, Canada Rogers@xxxx
3/1/00 194.102.93.47 Bucharest, Romania DIGICOM
3/2/00 10:49 TCP 24.68.53.85 TCP Calgary, Canada Shaw Fiberlink
3/2/00 12:07 TCP 24.112.182.231 TCP Toronto, Canada Rogers@xxxx
3/2/00 13:51 UDP 38.26.145.216 UDP Herndon, VA Performance Systems
3/3/00 23:02 FTP 211.0.81.130 TCP Tochigi, JAPAN Ishinkan Hotel Ltd.
3/4/00 01:49 TCP 207.44.231.3 TCP San Francisco, CA S E R Consulting
3/6/00 13:43 TCP 38.228.112.210 HTTP Herndon, VA Performance Systems
3/7/00 15:51 TCP 204.71.198.39 HTTPS Sunnyvale, CA GLOBAL CENTER, INC.
3/7/00 17:46 TCP 198.41.0.8 HTTP Herndon, VA Network Solutions
3/9/00 15:43 UDP 212.106.212.79 UDP Madrid, Spain Jazz Telecom S.A.
3/9/00 18:03 Telnet 145.236.216.11 TCP Budapest, Hungary Hungarian Telecom
3/9/00 23:40 TCP 206.133.71.33 TCP Herndon, VA Sprint
3/10/00 19:29 FTP 24.25.112.252 TCP Roseville, MN TimeWarnerCable
AND IF THAT IS NOT BAD ENOUGH...
Hackers found a cheap way to get valid credit card numbers. Yours maybe. Many web sites offer online prurchasing by credit card. All a hacker needs to do is set up a program that tries to order something using randomized credit card numbers and for each number, sequence through the 12 months. When a bad number is provided, the web site graciously responds it was a bad number, so the program tries another combination. Eventually, the program gets lucky and hits on a valid CC number and expiration date. That number is then used for ordering software that can be downloaded upon credit card approval. This way, the hacker cannot be traced. One of my credt cards was discovered this way and I had to cancel it and get a new one. VISA was nice enough to reverse charge all illegal purchases.
One way to prevent this is for the online store to require the purchaser's ZIP code to also match what's in the database, but many stores don't bother and those are the portals hackers use. Eventually, those stores will suffer from enough reverse charges to change their policy. But by then, new stores will pop up and make the same mistake.
Therefore, through no fault of your own, someone could now be making purchases with your CC information. The only thing you can do, short of canceling all your CCs, is to review your monthly statements as soon as they arrive and notify the CC firm of any unfamiliar purchases.
- Mark Jurik
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