Email Spotting

Lawrence D. Casiraya

May 22, 2006

A 22-year-old former call center agent faces imprisonment after pleading guilty to charges of hacking into his company's system to steal credit card information.

Jeffric Carlos Abiera was sentenced on May 4 by the Quezon City metropolitan court to a minimum imprisonment of one to two years plus a fine of P100,000 (US$5,858) in violation of section 33 of the E-Commerce Law.

According to a resolution filed by State Prosecutor Geronimo Sy, Abiera was able to break into the computer system of the credit card company affiliated with his former employer Sitel Philippines Corp.

Abiera was able to gain access to a database maintained by Sitel's sister firm in the United States and, using an internal IP address, proceeded to purchase goods online using various credit cards.

Fastnet Communications Inc., a local company that operates e-commerce sites www.pinasgift.com and www.philgrocer.com, lodged a complaint before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after recording fraudulent credit card transactions from December last year to January, whose deliveries had a common recipient in a certain "Jeff Carlos" of San Juan, Metro Manila.

The orders were made using a single IP address, which was traced by the NBI to Sitel's US office. Sitel's local office is located at the Eastwood Cyberzone in Libis, Quezon City.

A review of the workstation assigned to Abiera showed an internal IP address logged on to the phone adjacent to the computer at the time the orders were placed. He was also identified by a messenger from Fastnet as the one who received the initial two deliveries.

The NBI later on conducted an entrapment operation on the third delivery, which led to Abiera's arrest.

According to the complaint sheet filed by FastNet, different orders amounting to more than $2,000 were traced to the particular IP address, using different credit cards but with the same recipient. These orders were subsequently cancelled upon the advice of FastNet's third-party credit card processing company.

State Prosecutor Sy lauded the government's second conviction of violations against RA 8792. The first one involved JJ Maria Gener, who was convicted for a similar violation last September after pleading guilty of hacking into government portal gov.ph.

"There are 25 more cases in the pipeline involving violations against the E-Commerce Law," Sy said in an interview.

From: SYKES Security Advisory
Sent: 23 February, 2006 3:08 PM
To: OSMA Sykes Asia Inc.; RS Sykes Asia Inc.; BCT Sykes Asia, Inc.; KPT Sykes Asia Inc.
Subject: Security Advisory / Hold-up and Abduction

Last February 05,2006 Paul Garcia Ramos( Sykes employee based in RS ) was held-up and abducted for 5 hours .

It was a Saturday around 7:45 AM, and he was on his way home waiting for a taxi cab infront of Teazann( Tea House ) Valero Street near Mini Stop convenience store at the back of Robinson's Summit when a man in jacket approached him , ask what time it was, and without warning punched him on the left cheek. Another man came from behind, pointed a gun at his back, announced a hold-up and told him not to resist. The other man signalled a car waiting near Mini Stop to pick them up. The car was an old, rusty copper-colored Beetle Volkswagon( 70's model ) with heavy tint . The Beetle only had a drivers seat and a back seat ( the front passenger seat was removed ).

Once inside the Beetle, he was sandwiched by the two men at the back seat. Paul noticed foils used as drug paraphernalia and liqour bottles scattered inside. He also saw a bagful of mobile phones, one ingram assault weapon and three revolvers. The three barely spoke in Tagalog and used a local dialect Paul could not comprehend. When Paul would ask a question, the two men would elbow him and tell him to shut up.The men took his wallet and driver's license and ask him to withdraw from his ATM account. The car went in circles along Makati area for hours. Paul was asked to alight in one of the ATM machines located in Buendia and he withdrew the remaining savings from his account. The two men did not go into the machine area probably to avoid the ATM's CCTV camera. At around 1 PM , he was released by the group at EDSA corner Buendia and given fifty pesos ( Php50.00 ) for his transportation home .

According to Paul's description, the three men were between 25- 27 years old, wore maong and slacks and were in decent polo shirts( Paul perceive them as belonging to the middle income group). The three were between 5'9"- 5'10" in height. Two of them were about 170-180 pounds, while the other one weigh only about 120 pounds. From their conversations, Paul heard the three call each other by the following names: Raymond, Alex, and Boyet .

The plate number of the Beetle( NDX 189 ) was traced to a Toyota FX vehicle (asian utility van ) registered in SouthCotabato.

Again, we reiterate that there is nothing safer than looking after one's personal safety by being security conscious and vigilant.

Physical Security Coordinator