Computer hackers steal Carson funds
Cyber-thieves make off with $45,000 after shifting nearly $450,000 from the city's coffers.
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.
Armed with the spyware program, the hackers obtained bank passwords. They wired $90,000 to a "Diego Smith" in North Carolina. One day later, on May 24, the thieves got bolder and wired $358,000 from the city's bank account to a bank in Kalamazoo, Mich.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hackers1jun01,0,2083352.story?coll=la-home-local