Wireless hacking bust in Michigan
In a rare wireless hacking prosecution, federal officials this week accused two Michigan men of repeatedly cracking the Lowe's chain of home improvement stores' nationwide network from a 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix parked outside a suburban Detroit store.
Paul Timmins, 22, and Adam Botbyl, 20, were charged Monday with penetrating and intentionally damaging a Lowe's system in violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
According to an affidavit filed by FBI agent Denise Stemen, intruders first hopped onto the wi-fi network at the Lowe's store in Southfield, Michigan on October 25th, at 11:20 p.m, and used the store's network to access the company's central data center at Lowe's North Carolina headquarters.
They returned at least six times over the following two weeks and used the network to access store networks at seven other Lowe's locations around the country, in Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Dakota, Florida, and two stores in California. The intruders deployed unspecified hacking software at some of the stores, in once case crashing the point of sale terminals at a Lowe's in Long Beach, California, according to the affidavit.
At some point, Lowe's network administrators and security personnel detected and began monitoring the intrusions, and called in the FBI. Last Friday evening a Bureau surveillance team staked out the Southfield Lowe's parking lot, and spotted a white Grand Prix with suspicious antennas and two young men sitting inside. The car was registered to Botbl, and the passenger, later identified as Timmins, was seen typing on a laptop.
