Yahoo News / AP - June 18, 2002

Russian mob may have infiltrated university computers

If you're a college student you've got on more reason to stress out. It appears that the Russian mafia may have planted keystroke tracking software on computers at Arizona State University and four other universities in Florida, Arizona, Texas and California. This software records every key that is pressed on a computer and then makes the information available to a remote hacker.

The great thing about keystoke tracking software is that it takes all the guesswork out of figuring out a victim's PINs, account numbers, and credit card numbers. No dumpster diving [1] is necessary. The program records everything you type before it's encrypted and sent over the internet. So when a student uses a university computer in place to order a CD from Amazon.com or log into their bank account to check their balance, their credit card, bank account number, and PIN are sent to the hacker.

The Secret Service is investigating...

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