Suspected distributor of Spy Eye computer virus in federal custody in Atlanta

A man suspected of developing and distributing the Spy Eye computer virus to criminals across the world appeared for his arraignment in federal court Friday afternoon in downtown Atlanta.
24-year-old Hamza Bendelladj was apprehended in Thailand in January, after more than a year of evading authorities. The U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta said Bendelladj is believed to have commanded and controlled the virus from a computer server in north Georgia and therefore faced his arraignment in Atlanta.
According to Paul Royal, a professor in the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, the virus only impacts PCs and not Macintosh operating systems. It can be contracted simply by visiting a trusted site which may have been infected with the virus.
"It makes it easy for the bad guy to defraud people of his or her money," said Royal. "It's basically a piece of malicious software that will take control of the victim's computer. And it is installed without their knowledge."
Once installed, the virus can reconfigure a trusted bank's website to require personal identification information upon login. Once that PIN is given, the person controlling the virus software can use the information to hijack money.
Even though Bendelladj has been apprehended, Royal said the virus is believed to have been sold to hundreds of criminals worldwide and is still in use.

Rajasthan Public Service Commission website hacked, Pak-based miscreants suspected

The official website of Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) was hacked, allegedly by hackers based in Pakistan. Police was intimated after it came to the notice of the RPSC authorities. Cyber experts were called to set things right. It was found that the main site of the Commission was hacked and in the news section there were two links of "Pakistan Zindabad." Even the official website of online application was hacked and it was not displayed rightly. The hackers had also written that it was high time Indian authorities admire the fact that Pakistan is the best.

Immediately after it was brought to the notice of the authorities the administration change the password of the website and also put both the main pages of the web on surveillance. "The only thing which can give us relief is that the main server on the data base is intact and the hackers could not hack it," said a senior officer with RPSC. The Commission has also reported the matter to information technology department of the Central government and is preparing to register a case under IT Act. Sources said that the Commission has three websites linked to each other on which there is an online application page, information and main data page. "We found that the online and information page was hacked on Saturday morning," said K K Pathak, secretary of RPSC.

The news section of the website had two links which showed a page created as "Pakistan Zindababd". "It is difficult to find out who hacked this portal. We have removed the disturbing links and changed the password. We also put the websites on surveillance and have reported to the IT ministry," added Pathak.