You don't know how long The Daily Caveat has been trying to find a way to work America's favorite blond, bubble-headed celebutante into our daily news. Finally the day has arrived. I don't think I can add much more to this crazy story beyond what you can read below:

Federal Investigators Remove PCs, Discs From Several Locations; LexisNexis Break-In Linked to Paris Hilton Phone Hacking

By Brian Krebs
Washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, May 19, 2005

The federal investigation into the massive theft of sensitive personal records from database giant LexisNexis Inc. intensified this week with the execution of search warrants and seizure of evidence from several individuals across the country, according to federal law enforcement officials.

Three people targeted in the investigation confirmed that federal investigators had served warrants at their homes. The group included a minor who has been in contact with a washingtonpost.com reporter for three months and who said he was directly involved in the LexisNexis breach...

...The minor, whose identity is not being revealed because he is a juvenile crime suspect and because he communicated with a washingtonpost.com reporter on condition of anonymity, said federal officials "raided" his home this week and seized his computer. He said investigators "got everybody" involved in the digital break-in.

Nine people in all were served search warrants by investigators, according to a senior federal law enforcement official who asked not to be identified because of his role in this and other ongoing investigations. The official said several members of the group are also believed by investigators to be involved in the much-publicized hacking in February of hotel heiress Paris Hilton's T-Mobile cell phone account, but he did not specify which members...

...The link between the LexisNexis and Paris Hilton investigations is supported by online conversations that a washingtonpost.com reporter had with the minor whose home was searched. The minor said he was involved in both intrusions and provided an image of what he said was a Web page that only T-Mobile employees would have access to...

...According to an account provided by the teenaged member of the hacker group -- and confirmed by the law enforcement source who insisted on anonymity -- the LexisNexis break-in was set in motion by a blast of junk e-mail. Sometime in February a small group of hackers, many of whom only knew each other through online communications, sent out hundreds of e-mails with a message urging recipients to open an attached file to view pornographic child images. The attachments had nothing to do with child porn; rather, the files harbored a virus that allowed the group's members to record anything a recipient typed on his or her computer keyboard.

According to the teenage source, a police officer in Florida was among those who opened the infected e-mail message. Not long after his computer was infected with the keystroke-capturing virus, the officer logged on to his police department's account at Accurint, a LexisNexis service provided by Florida-based subsidiary Seisint Inc., which sells access to consumer data. Other officers' login information may have been similarly stolen, the law enforcement source said.

The young hacker said the group members then created a series of sub-accounts using the police department's name and billing information. Over several days, the hacker said the group looked up thousands of names in the database, including friends and celebrities. The law enforcement source said the group eventually began selling Social Security numbers and other sensitive consumer information to a ring of identity thieves in California. washingtonpost.com has not been able to reach the young source to seek comment about the sale of personal information.

Much more intrigue at the WashingtonPost.com.

-- MDT

Labels: data breech, database, identity theft