Espionage – BadCyber

Errors, threats and extortion – history of a bank hack part one

A few months ago a Polish bank fell victim to a serious hacker attack, and that its customers’ money, passwords and personal information were stolen. Within this series, we reconstruct the gradual disclosure of information on this subject.

The evidence we have received shows that a mysterious attacker had full access to the main webserver of a Polish bank for several weeks. That enabled him to make unauthorized transfers and collect personal information of customers, as well as their cards and account history. The attacker claims to have stolen a total of approx. PLN 1 million from multiple accounts, and the bank allegedly was in the dark for several weeks. Continue reading “Errors, threats and extortion – history of a bank hack part one”

The great Greek wiretapping affair

On March 9, 2005 an engineer working for the Greek branch of Vodafone was found dead in his apartment. The next day, the chairman of Vodafone informed the Greek Prime Minister that his telephones, and those of the members of his government and other important people in the country had been tapped. And that was only the beginning… The story of this, probably the greatest phone hacking scandal in Europe, which occurred many years ago, is not widely known – something we will try to amend. Read on.

The mysterious death of an engineer

Costas Tsalikidis worked for the Greek branch of Vodafone for 11 years. From the beginning of his career, he was responsible for planning the architecture of the Company’s GSM, GPRS and UMTS networks. In February 2005, he allegedly handed in his resignation, but his employers persuaded him not to leave. On March 9, 2005, he was found dead in his apartment, with all the evidence pointing to suicide by hanging. His death coincided with the disclosure of the greatest phone hacking scandal in Greece, and probably also in Europe.

Continue reading “The great Greek wiretapping affair”