Personally Motivated

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Personally Motivated

Personal motives run the entire gamut from hacking into systems for fun to extracting revenge on a company that the attacker feels has wronged him. Personal motives are very strong and will often make the attacker continue fruitless attacks well beyond reason.

When the resources are unique or difficult or expensive to get otherwise , the attacker may compromise a system to use the resources for personal use. Some systems are targeted because of these special resources. Systems with dial-out modems are often valued, since the attacker can use them to dial out to another ISP and thereby increase the difficulty of tracking the hacker.

The Internet has become a popular place for personally motivated attacks against companies and individuals. The anonymity of the Internet creates a sense of security which gives the personally motivated hacker the feeling of freedom and invincibility.

Disgruntled Employees

Disgruntled employees and ex-employees are the largest group of computer criminals. They are strongly motivated and are very focused on their target. They will often expend more energy and money to achieve their goal than the value of the attack.

An ex-employee of Tornado Development, Bret McDanel, allegedly spammed Tornado's computer system, causing a denial-of-service attack and forcing Tornado to shut down its system. McDanel accessed Tornado's system five times in about three weeks, twice gaining unauthorized access to Tornado's mail server, then spamming approximately 11,000 of Tornado's customers on three occasions.

These intrustions into Tornado's system resulted in a loss of approximately $325,000 to Tornado. ^[19]

^[19] "FBI Arrrests Computer Hacker Wanted in Los Angeles," FBI San Diego Division , 18 July 2001.

Cyber-stalking

Cyber-stalking is a growing problem. With more people being connected more of the time, harassing and menacing messages and activities are increasing. The perceived anonymity of computers and the Internet has allowed some individuals to use this media to harass other individuals. Often it enables them to show off their superiority in the area of technology to someone to whom they feel inferior in real life.

At times the harassment turns violent. There are incidents where it is the individual himself who, having become obsessed, turns violent and there are incidents where the individual has convinced others to perform the violent acts for him.

In the first successful prosecution under California's new cyberstalking law, prosecutors in the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office obtained a guilty plea from a 50-year-old former security guard who used the Internet to solicit the rape of a woman who rejected his romantic advances. The defendant terrorized his 28-year-old victim by impersonating her in various Internet chat rooms and online bulletin boards , where he posted, along with her telephone number and address, messages that she fantasized of being raped. On at least six occasions, sometimes in the middle of the night, men knocked on the woman's door saying they wanted to rape her. The former security guard pleaded guilty in April 1999 to one count of stalking and three counts of solicitation of sexual assault. He faces up to six years in prison . ^[20]

^[20] "1999 Report on Cyber-stalking," A Report from the Attorney General , August 1999.

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