Man Accused of Hacking Data & BlackMailing Maserati

According to officials, a man from Solana Beach was accused in a federal court on September 21, 2008 after he was arrested for computer hacking and extortion.

Bruce Mengler, 60, was detained on September 18, 2008 following a warrant for his detention. According to the authorities, Mengler deliberately caused destruction to a protected PC of Maserati North America and then extorted the organization in early 2008.

Court documents presented by prosecutors in connection of the incident indicate that Mengler accessed data of Maserati North America customers in March 2008 by employing automated software to guess PINs that the organization issued to its customers for accessing a promotional Website. Once Mengler successfully got a PIN, prosecutors say, he would exploit it for logging onto the site and subsequently download PIN-related data of the customers, including the customers' addresses and names.

Moreover, Mengler tried to blackmail Maserati through a number of threatening e-mails, as per the prosecution. Some information on the e-mails' contents have been publicized, which says that if the company wants Mengler to remain quiet about the lack of privacy and security and not let that to be known to everyone, then it must make him an offer he can't refuse. He hinted that what dollar amount Maserati would think worth paying to keep each customer's information safe from public hands.

In other messages, Mengler threatened to "disclose" the facts that he successfully gathered to media groups across the country if the company did not pay him well. Mengler further wrote that he wondered if the organization had rectified its "brain dead Web implementation". He bragged that he held over 2,600 customer inventories, which he threatened to hand over to Maserati's rivals.

According to security experts, the case emphasizes that companies are required to protect their customer information, whether relating to real customer data or simply promotional lists.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant, Sophos, stated that if a computer hacker is successful in acquiring access to client data through the advertising site, then it send out a warning that organizations need to effectively secure their Websites meant for public use, as reported by vnunet on September 23, 2008.

Related article: Man Sues and Wins against ISP for Spamming Mail

» SPAMfighter News - 29-09-2008

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