Post 5: Computer Crime Case 2

Malaysian charged with hacking into US bank

Saturday November 20, 2010

NEW YORK: A Malaysian man, charged on Thursday with hacking into computer networks of the US Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) and a defence contractor, was caught by Secret Service agents while selling stolen credit card numbers for US$1,000 (RM3,200) at a diner in New York.

For news detail, please visit: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/11/20/nation/7469956&sec=nation

"US prosecutors described Lin Mun Poo, 32, as an “extremely sophisticated and dangerous computer hacker” in documents obtained from the US Justice Department."

In this case, Lin is offenced the computer crime act 1997 section 4(1) where he intended to use his computer to hack into high security cyber systems of major institutions in the US, including the Federal Reserve Bank and the Pentagon’s security contractors. Resulting in thousands of dollars in damages, affecting 10 or more computers.

I am sure this is a very surprise news to most of the Malaysian where our "neighbor" is in the world headline but unfortunate for the wrong reason.

What a waste, imagine a guys who manage to hack into Federal Reserve Bank which has a high security cyber systems had wrongly utilize his skill in an offence of computer crime. I am sure many IT engineers in Malaysia are envy with the skill Lin has, if the skill are proper utilize in a good way, he at least can easily be a specialist in IT firm in many aspect. He can use his skill to increase our central bank security cyber system or may be give advice to the banker how to defend from hacker hack into their system, he is a good candidate who can understand more on the motive of those hacker compare to others.

Is greedy causing the act or we do not appreciate the skill that Lin has is still questionable.

However, one has to responsible for his own actions, if Lin convicted, he would be facing a potential maximum prison sentence of between six-and-a-half years to eight years.