News & Events
Scam Alert -Cyber Spying
Broadcast on NBC
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Unidentified Man #2 (Experiment Participant): I was caught
off guard. Something wasn't right. But it was too late.
Unidentified Woman (Experiment Participant): It's scary to
know that in one little click, someone can change your
whole life.
TIBBLES: These are the voices of identity theft. But they
are the lucky ones, not victims of a real scam, but of an
unscientific experiment conducted by Jim Stickley and his
company TraceSecurity.
Mr. JIM STICKLEY (TraceSecurity): We're trying to find out
what are the risks out there, what are people susceptible
to, and then coming up with solutions before they're
actually falling victim for real.
TIBBLES: Over the next three days, you'll see how these
people could have fallen prey to a crime that affected an
estimated nine million people just last year, beginning
with a disturbing ploy that could give crooks a window
directly inside your home: cyber spying.
A cyber spy could track every move you make via your
computer's Web cam, simply by tricking you into believing
that program you're downloading is legitimate. But hidden
inside that program are the keys to accessing everything in
your computer.
At the TraceSecurity headquarters in Baton Rouge, Jim
demonstrated this scam: sending out five Web cams to a
group of friends and family, along with the letter claiming
they'd been randomly selected by a fictitious company for
an Internet usage survey. But when the recipient loads the
software, they're actually running a program designed by
Jim that could give him control of the camera and the
computer itself.
Mr. STICKLEY: The CD still looks real, only now you're
loading our software first and our software's very
malicious. You're going, 'OK, right now I'm in my home.
My shades are closed, I'm secure. I can do whatever I want
and no one's around,' and you're blowing that away. I
mean, suddenly, there is somebody around, and it can be
millions of people.
TIBBLES: After a week, a Web cam had been set up. Jim
called the victim, his own brother-in-law Pat to inform him
he'd been tricked. A courtesy any real hacker wouldn't
extend.
Mr. STICKLEY: I received an e-mail that showed me that a
camera had come in. Well, right now I can communicate with
everything on their computer. I can start their camera out,
I can run commands. I can do whatever I need to do on
their computer.
TIBBLES: Once Pat agreed to be recorded, Jim showed how
easily his spying could go unnoticed.
Mr. STICKLEY: Can you tell in any way that you're being
filmed right now on your camera?
PAT (As Identified, Experiment Participant): No. Nothing
at all. It's unnerving, to say the least.
TIBBLES: With consent from Pat, Jim could cyber spy
through Pat's Web cam and had complete access to personal
files.
Mr. STICKLEY: I could download, for example, their cookies
off their computer, which a lot of times are used for part
of the authentication process with online banking. I can
record their keyboard computers, so everything they type
in, their username and password, Social Security numbers
and a lot of private information.
TIBBLES: For Jim, accessing Pat's personal information
proved to be simple.
PAT: I hooked it up, hooked the Web cam up, and put it in
and didn't think anything about it.
TIBBLES: One recipient told the fake company they were
suspicious; the other three did not respond.
Mr. STICKLEY: I would hope it's going to bring awareness
to it. I mean, it could be something very simple, very
benign where they just think they're downloading a screen
saver for their computer and that one screen saver could
activate a whole slew of problems for them and giving
somebody full access to their system.
PAT: Everybody wants to have the convenience of being on
the computer, but with that freedom comes all these risks.
And hopefully, people watching will learn the same thing.
TIBBLES: One out of our five targets fell victim to our
scam. One too many, which Jim hopes will raise awareness
of this potential threat.
Mr. STICKLEY: You know, it's very simple to take advantage
of that kind, kind of good-natured feeling that everybody
has that, 'When I get something in the mail it must be a
good thing.' So, you know, we feel bad, but we hope we're
enlightening people.
TIBBLES: And, Meredith, if you're using the same computer
to do your banking as your kids are using to download
screen savers or little smiley faces, chances are you might
want to start using a different computer.
VIEIRA: Dangerous stuff. Kevin Tibbles, thanks so much.
TIBBLES: You bet.
VIEIRA: We'll be back right after this.