It doesn't pay to brag if you're a cop.
Police officers in Australia found themselves on the receiving end of hackers they were trying to prosecute after leaving a password for their computers blank.
Hackers broke into police computers after police bragged that they had taken down a number of hackers in Brighton, Melbourne, on the website r00t-y0u.org. Trouble is, they didn't seem to protect themselves from their own targets. After getting search warrants to target the site's administrators, they found that the alleged hackers were already onto them.
The Sydney Morning Herald noted in an exclusive Tuesday:
What the federal police did not know was that hackers had already cottoned on to their plan... (a) hacker wrote "I couldn't stop laughing" on seeing that the federal police's server was running Windows, which is known among hacker communities for being insecure. Police had also "left the MYSQL password blank".
"These dipshits are using an automatic digital forensics and incident response tool," the hacker wrote. "All of this had been done within 30-40 minutes. Could of been faster if I didn't stop to laugh so much." ...
The hackers also mocked police for bragging about their sting, asserting that the police officers' claims were overblown.
[One alleged] hacker slammed the federal police for "making it sound like they can bust 'hackers', when all they have done is busted a COUPLE script kiddies". "Script kiddies" is hacker parlance for novice hackers.
The second of these messages contained several links to screenshots allegedly proving that the writer had access to the federal police's server.
These included shots of files containing fake IDs and stolen credit card numbers, as well as the federal police's server information.
A posting on the r00t forum now alleges the site has been monitored and that all postings have been logged. But the tech site The Register suggests that the message has been posted by a hacker defacing the site, or as part of a mockery of the police's efforts.
"This underground form [sic] has been monitored by law enforcement - every post, private message and all registration information has been captured," the message reads. "All member IP addressed and have been logged and identification processes are now underway.
"The creation and distribution of malware, denial of service attacks and accessing stolen information are serious crimes," it continues.
"Every movement on this forum has been tracked and where there is information to suggest a person has committed a criminal act, referrals will be forwarded to the relevant authority in each jurisdiction," it adds. "There have already been a number of arrests as a result of current investigations. This message should serve as a warning not to engage in criminal activity."
-John Byrne
