Computer Crime

As Los Angeles and hundreds of other communities push to turn themselves into massive wireless hotspots, unsuspecting Internet users are stumbling onto hacker turf, giving computer thieves nearly effortless access to their laptops and private information, authorities and high-tech security experts say.

Here are some tips for safer Internet surfing from Roland Dobbins, a network engineer who helps develop security solutions for Cisco Systems. Do it yourself Connect and disconnect from the Internet manually by right-clicking on the wireless Internet icon and either enabling or disabling the connection. This prevents your computer from automatically searching out possibly fake Internet access points without your knowledge.

The United States generates more malicious computer activity than any other country, and sophisticated hackers worldwide are banding together in highly efficient crime rings, according to a new report. Researchers at Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec Corp. also found that fierce competition in the criminal underworld was driving down prices for stolen financial information.

Oracle Corp. on Thursday accused SAP of hacking into its computers to steal secret product information in a lawsuit that escalates the animosity between two of the world's largest business software makers. "This isn't really about protecting intellectual property," Forrester Research analyst Ray Wang said. "This is all about the art of war."

You didn't get just low prices at T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, you also had a good chance of getting your credit card information and other personal data stolen. You can hardly live without credit and debit cards these days, but there are steps that can be taken to ward off the perils of identity theft, privacy experts say, even if caused by a giant information leak from some remote, windowless computer center. The stakes are high.

A contract technician accused of sabotaging computers at the agency that controls most of California's electrical grid was able to enter the building and high-security inner rooms -- allowed in by electronic card readers and a handprint scanner -- even though his employer had warned days earlier that he should be denied access to the facility, authorities said.

No one in the evening crowd at a Starbucks in Pasadena knew Humphrey Cheung. But Cheung, quietly sipping hot chocolate and working on his laptop, knew things about them. Several tables away was a guy sitting alone with his own laptop. "He's starting a business," Cheung said. And the young couple in the far corner? "They're getting married," he confided. Cheung isn't psychic. He had hacked into the coffee shop's wireless Internet connection on his Toshiba laptop.

Tens of millions of dollars have been looted from online brokerage accounts in a fast-growing fraud that targets hotel guests and Internet cafe patrons, FBI officials say. The scams cost New York-based E-Trade Financial Corp. $18 million in last year's third quarter to reimburse customers whose accounts were pilfered. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said it spent $4 million. The Justice Department unsealed its first criminal charges in such cases in March.

COMBING through the guts of the website for the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission, an information technology worker for the agency came across an intruder. Someone with an Internet provider address in Germany had broken in and looked at private information normally accessible only to commission employees. The worker immediately shut the system down.

If Carson Treasurer Karen Avilla had had a nagging feeling she was being watched whenever she got on her laptop computer, she would have been right. Cyber-thieves were able to shift nearly $450,000 from the city's general fund last week by using a program that was able to mimic the computer strokes made by Carson's financial officer. Each time Avilla logged on to her city-provided laptop in the morning, someone was -- virtually -- looking over her shoulder, recording every single keystroke.