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Dear Customer,
TheNerds.net has discovered that a hacker has accessed our computer systems, potentially including our customer databases. While there is no indication that any customer information has been compromised, as a precautionary measure, we have taken immediate steps to protect you by contacting the U.S Secret Service and the FBI.
Since speaking with law enforcement we have discovered who the hackers are and their motives. Just recently another internet company was a victim of "Zilterio". Lead by a man who calls himself "Mr. Zilterio," they wanted $50,000 transferred to a bank account that was traced through Russia to Yemen.
The threat? Zilterio claimed that they had, or might be able to access confidential customer information, to include credit card numbers.
Here are some of the details that we have learned.
¤ We quickly learned, from talking to law enforcement authorities and other victims, that the same criminal and his associates had extorted as much as $4 billion from other companies using similar tactics.
¤ We found that they may, in fact, have exploited an obscure and previously unknown hole in a common commercial software program we use, one that's supposed to be very secure.
¤ This "Mr. Zilterio" may, if he follows a pattern he's established when attacking other organizations, send you email which claims to present "evidence" that he has access to confidential information, and/or that he was actually trying to "help" TheNerds.Net with its security. Remember how easy it is, online, for people to forge evidence and make it appear to be legitimate. All you have to do is conduct a little online research of your own about Zilterio to find proof that he is nothing more than a extortionist, a criminal, a cyber-terrorist.
In order to combat Zilterio and any future hackers, we have retained the world's leading computer security experts to conduct a thorough investigation of our security procedures and an analysis of this breach.
¤ We quickly plugged that hole and have now taken extraordinary additional steps to put customer data where it cannot be accessed except locally by authorized staff.
¤ We notified the major credit card companies of the threat and they have placed a special watch on your credit card numbers -- this will NOT affect your ability to use the card, but some of you may get occasional calls from your credit card issuer just to make sure that certain charges were, in fact, made by you.
We wish to underscore that we have taken these steps as precautions. We have no information at this time to suggest that any credit card information has been or will be used in any fraudulent manner. We feel that this was vandalism against TheNerds.net rather than our customers. We are investigating this possibility, and we are doing everything we can to proactively protect you. If you would like further information, you may wish to contact the issuer of your credit card to determine what steps you should take. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you.
If you have additional questions, please call our customer service team at 1-888-566-NERD (566-6373).
Respectfully,
TheNerds.net
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This was followed with a second note later that afternoon:
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Dear Customer,
Thank you for your patience and understanding with regards to the hacking of the customer databases at TheNerds.net. Please know the email you received earlier today describing the situation was sent as soon as we became aware our data was compromised. Unfortunately, due to the number of messages sent, you might have experienced a delay in receiving this e-mail. As we described in that message, there was no indication at that time that any customer information had been compromised.
After conferring with the FBI, Secret Service and several valued customers, it has become clear that your personal and credit card information might have been compromised. In fact, some customers even received their credit card numbers from this self-confessed cyber-terrorist over a non-secure internet connection. Because of this most unfortunate development, we highly recommend that all previous customers contact their credit card company, inform them that your card might be compromised and seek their recommendation for a course of action.
In addition, we are pleased to report we have discovered and repaired the hole which this criminal used to violate each of us. Unfortunately, Microsoft made the public aware of the hole just last week. In addition to repairing the hole, we are now changing the way our customer information is stored. Customer data will no longer be accessible by anyone, even our internal staff, over any type of Internet connection.
We sincerely invite your feedback and are happy to answer any questions, however note this is a no-reply email address. Becuase we are using a newsletter managment system to send this to you, messages sent as a reply to this e-mail might not be read by our staff. Should you wish to contact us via e-mail, please write to
Again, thank you for your patience and understanding. We hope to service your computer needs in the near future.
Regards,
Jeremy Schneiderman and David Kriegstein
Principals
Computer Nerds International, Inc.
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Now, ordinarily I wouldn't give any publicity to the thieves who perpetrated this crime. However, after following up with a stern reply, asking them (rhetorically) not to tell me that they use Microsoft's IIS as their web server software (knowing full well the security leaks it harbors, much like a sponge), I did a quick search at NetCraft's "What's that site running?" page (www.netcraft.com) to see what would turn up:
The site www.thenerds.net is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
Why am I not surprised?
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