It s their ability to code which makes them more dangerous, and they are more dangerous, said a security consultant who protects computers at a large U.S.-based brokerage. While many hackers in the U.S. cut and paste snippets of computer code to attack companies, Europeans hackers are much more likely to develop unique attack code on the spot, he said. Programmers from Bulgaria, from Russia, they are good. And they pick big targets. In August, Eircom, Ireland s largest Internet service provider, had to change passwords for all its 240,000 customers after a hacker gained access to the company s systems.
Lofty targets are a long-standing tradition in Europe.
Tom Talleur, now a consultant with KPMG, was in charge of new technology security at NASA nearly two decades ago when he says the Chaos Computer Club issued a bounty for anyone who could break into the Command and Control Center for the U.S. Space Shuttle program. The Chaos Computer Club did not respond to e-mail interview requests. Asked if anyone ever got into the Space Shuttle computers, Talluer would only say Not that I m aware of. In a well-known televised incident, the CCC demonstrated its ability to exploit Quicken personal financial software in 1997 by using the software to transfer funds between accounts without use of a password. Similar to high-profile U.S. hacker groups like the Cult of the Dead Cow, the CCC views itself as a research group which publicizes security problems in an attempt to call attention to them.