Wednesday, July 4, 2001

Intruder crashes United Arab Emirates' only ISP A computer whizzkid has been fined £2,000 ($2,600) for hacking into the United Arab Emirates' only Internet provider and causing the whole country's system to crash. Lee Ashurst, 22, originally from Oldham in Greater Manchester, was convicted of misusing equipment, services or facilities provided by Emirates Telecommunications Corp Etisalat. Ashurst, who works for a construction company in the Gulf, is now facing a compensation claim of more than £500,000 ($650,000) from Etisalat after the Dubai Court of First Instance transferred his case to the civil courts. He was working as a computer engineer at a Dubai construction firm in May last year (00) when he began hacking into Etisalat's systems. According to the Gulf News newspaper, the court was told the entire United Arab Emirates internet system crashed on several occasions over a month. http://63.108.181.201/2001/07/03/eng-wenn/eng-wenn_001056_76_4245186652988.html [Dave Stringer-Calvert via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 50] 0:00 # G!