Stolen Berkeley Heights computer logs into Facebook, leads to arrest

BERKELEY HEIGHTS -- If you’re going to keep a stolen computer, don’t use it to update your Facebook status.

Police in Berkeley Heights used LoJack and Facebook to track a computer stolen in a burglary there to Passaic. In March, a Dell laptop computer valued at $1,272 was stolen from a home on Ridge Drive in Berkeley Heights, according to Sgt. Frank Fortunato, the department’s spokesman.

Police notified employees at LoJack, a radio transmitting device used to recover vehicles and electronics, to activate a tracking device installed in the computer.

The computer stayed dormant until late September, when police began receiving signals that LoJack had identified a location, the residence of Dayron Johnson, 35, in Passaic.

“We were able to see that he was logging onto his Facebook page and AOL screen name,” said Detective Sgt. Michael Mathis, of the Berkeley Heights Police Department.

Mathis said there was nothing incriminating written on Johnson’s Facebook page, but investigators took the information to the Union County Prosecutor and obtained a warrant.

Some burglaries in Mountainside were similar to the one in Berkeley Heights in which the computer was taken - front door entry and small, expensive goods taken inside a pillowcase - so police from the two communities executed the search in case other evidence was found.

“We walked in and saw the computer sitting on a small desk in the dining room,” Mathis said. “It was turned on and his Facebook page was on the screen.”

Mathis said there was not enough evidence to charge Johnson with the burglary, but police charged him with possessing stolen evidence. Johnson is currently in Union County Jail, being held on $75,000 bail.

“In this case, Facebook helped with identifying and painting a picture of our suspect,” Mathis said. “But, it was LoJack that helped."

DHB Computer Hit with Malicious Virus

While being upgraded on Thursday, the computer system of the Waikato District Health Board was attacked by a malicious virus, which led to the entire system's shut down.

It has been reported that hospital staff across the Waikato DHB area immediately shut down about 3000 computers when they were attacked by the Conficker virus, and parts of the system were able to be put back into use last night.

Calling the attack "random" and a part of the ongoing appearance of Malware", Health Ministry's Deputy Director General of Health Information Directorate, Alan Hesketh, shared that the board has previously managed to defend itself against such attacks on numerous occasions.

"When they were going through this upgrade, clearly some vulnerability was exposed, and taken advantage of. The particular worm they've got is out there all the time. We see attempts to get into our (IT) environment at least five or six times a week. We're concerned about it, and that's why all the DHBs have controls in place", Mr. Hesketh.

Despite the fact that all the board's systems were connected, there have been no reports of the virus attacking any other IT system, which has led the organization to heave a sigh of relief.

Microsoft Dismisses BitLocker Threat

Microsoft claims recent Internet reports about vulnerabilities in its BitLocker security technology are exaggerated.
"Success comes at a price," wrote Microsoft senior director Paul Cooke, in a blog post Monday. That price, Cooke wrote, includes "greater scrutiny and misinterpretation of some of the technologies. One of those technologies is BitLocker," he said.

BitLocker is a drive encryption system that Microsoft introduced in 2007 with the introduction of Windows Vista. It's also included in some versions of the new Windows 7 operating system, which debuted in October.

Security bloggers, including researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology, in recent days have published reports that PCs and laptops protected with BitLocker could be compromised in certain circumstances.

But Cooke said those circumstances covered scenarios that were highly unlikely to occur in real life.

"This research is similar to other published attacks where the computer owner leaves a computer unattended in a hotel room and anyone with access to the room could tamper with the computer," wrote Cooke.

"This sort of attack poses a relatively low risk to folks who use BitLocker in the real world," he said.

Still, Cooke reminded Windows users that BitLocker is only one element of Microsoft's multi-tiered approach to security.

"Even with the great enhancements made in Windows 7 such as BitLocker To Go, it still remains that BitLocker alone is not a complete security solution," said Cooke.

"IT professionals as well as users must be diligent when protecting IT resources and the best protection against these sorts of targeted attacks requires more than just technology. It requires end user education and physical security also play important roles," Cooke wrote.

Making the first computer virus

If you've ever had to spend a lot of money on antivirus software, you'd be forgiven for wanting to take Dr Fred Cohen aside for, to put it politely, a few choice words.

But although Dr Cohen is responsible for creating the first ever computer virus some 26 years ago, his pioneering research has in fact led the way in protecting computers from the threats that surfaced in the years to come.

He told BBC World Service's Witness programme about the day he made the discovery while studying at the University of Southern California.

After a neighbouring university created a Trojan horse - which allowed hackers to gain access to a machine - Dr Cohen realised that the Trojan could be programmed to duplicate itself.

This is the proverbial lightbulb going off.

"I was sitting there in the class and all of a sudden it dawned on me that if that Trojan horse copied itself into other programs, then all those programs would be infected, and then everybody that ran any of those programs would get infected and so forth.

"It was at that point immediately obvious that it was game over."

He discussed the idea with Dr Len Adleman, another computer security expert at the university.

"Fred approached me and said he had this new type of computer security threat, and he began to describe what we now call viruses," recalled Dr Adleman.

"He wanted to run some actual experiments, in particular on the computer that I used.

"There was no point in running an experiment, since it was so obvious that it was going to work."

However, Dr Cohen insisted they make sure - and the first computer virus was born.

"In that moment, I pretty much understood the bad news.

"I spent the next five or six years of my life trying to find ways to protect against it and understanding the limits of what could ever be done."

Ethical dilemma

Armed with their new discovery, the pair faced a problem.

It had the potential to have a massive negative impact on the computing world. As academics, did they have an obligation to share their findings or should the vulnerability be kept secret?

They decided to publish the paper.

"If we told people about computer viruses, they could potentially protect themselves," said Dr Adleman.

"It was also at least my impression that computer viruses were inevitable, and were going to arrive whether Fred published or not.

"In the end we decided to publish, but to not make the code that Fred put in his paper so explicit that an amateur could take it and produce computer viruses."

Dr Cohen agreed.

"This was going to happen one way or another. The real question was is it going to happen after somebody's done the research, and figured out what to do about it, or is it going to happen before the research is done - and then we're really in trouble."

Dr Cohen believes that genuine research into possible threats has not happened for quite some time.

"As far as I can tell, somewhere around the late eighties or early nineties was the end of the real research related to computer viruses.

"There are businesses that want to make sure they keep making money by having cures that fix the last one, but not the next one."