The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "computer virus" ...
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Zero Day Threat
"Zero Day Threat is a seminal work that explains how the banking industry's decades-long drive to shape a cashless society, built on too-easy credit, collided with the emergence of the Internet to spawn the fast-expanding world of cybercrime."
Tags: cybercrime; banking industry; Internet; web sites; computer crime; internet scams; identity theft; credit bureau; email virus
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Bugs on the Border
The Department of Homeland Security's screening for foreign nationals entering the U.S. was crippled for about five hours due to a computer security failure. However, they claimed that the problem was a result of glitches, not a virus although a Morocco-born computer worm had actually been the cause of the computer failure. It entered the system when government administrators had delayed installing a security patch. “The stories provided a concrete example of the management issues and technical problems surrounding US-VISIT – a lynchpin of the United States’ border protection efforts.â€
Tags: computer security; computer worm; computer virus; Microsoft Office; security patch; US-VISIT; Homeland Security; national security; screening foreign nationals
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Toxic Offender: Disastrous Sewage Plant Threatens Health
This series documents Twarowski's investigation into complaints of dangerous and unhealthy conditions inside the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Wantaugh, NY. Employees clandestinely videotaped horrendous conditions inside the plant and Twarowski later verified their findings in person. Each visit to the vast plant turned up more safety hazards.
Tags: Environment; pollution; waste treatment; sewage; hepatitis; viruses; public health; OSHA; Public Employee Safety and Health; Department of Environmental Conservation
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Net Threat Rising
Consumer Reports looked at how computer users' behavior makes them more vulnerable to internet scams and viruses. The writers found that although Americans have invested more than $2.6 billion in protection software, they are spending over three times that much for repairs and to solve problems caused by viruses and spyware.
Tags: viruses; phishing; computers; internet; online scams; spyware; internet scams
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The Doomsday Click
The New Yorker analyses "how easily could a hacker bring the world to a standstill." The story explains how harassment by computer viruses could easily turn into much more serious attacks.
Tags: electronics; digital technology; computers; banks; corporate hacking; world wide web
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Cyberspace Invaders
Hackers and computer viruses can trash your computer or use it to attack banks, insurance companies, power plants, and other institutions. Here's how to stop them.
Tags: cyberspace; computers; Internet; hackers; computer viruses; home-computer security
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U.S. Government Hysteria In Computer Security
Vmyths.com reports on the U.S. government's "panicked approach" to computer security before and after September 11th, 2001. The articles look at "plagiarism and other shenanigans" in the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, the role of the National Security Council in giving computer virus technology to the Chinese government, an examination of the attempt to limit FOIA in the name of computer security, and an effort to keep the trials of hackers away from public scrutiny.
Tags: computer security; September 11; 2000; FBI; National Infrastructure Protection Center; National Security Council; FOIA; sixth amendment
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Internet Insecurity
A Time cover story looks at the increasing risks posed by identity thieves on the Net. Reporter Adam Cohen uses a quite nontraditional approach: he steals the identity of his colleague Joel Stein, with the editors' knowledge, and reveals what it feels like to peek in somebody else's e-mails and computer hard drive. The story lists nine Internet's threats to privacy, followed by ten ways individuals can defend themselves. "Microsoft conceded that all versions of Windows 2000, and early "beta" viruses of its new XP operating system... have a "serious vulnerability," Time reports. In conclusion, Cohen's co-worker Joel Stein tells a real story about his AmEx credit card identity being stolen and charged with hundreds of dollars in the past.
Tags: The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse; Sun Microsystems; cyberspace; browsers; Doubleclick; e-commerce; SpectorSoft's e-blaster; spyware; WinWhatWhere Investigator; Orifice; cyberstalkers
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Cyberspace Hunt Targets Virus Writer
"Only hours after the ILOVEYOU virus paralyzed computer systems around the world, an independent band of investigators began to hunt down the virus author through cyberspace. ... Within a few hours, the collective minds of the ad-hoc group (including MSNBC's Bob Sullivan) came within a whisker of finding the virus writer. This story is the first in the world to mention the name 'Onel de Guzman' -- days before authorities in the Philippines traced the program to the disgruntled college student."
Tags: CD; Internet; virus; technology; e-mail; ILOVEYOU virus; Onel de Guzman
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Notes from the Virus Underground
Rolling Stone reports how "computer viruses are the terrorist threat of the digital age. The inside story of who creates them and why."
Tags: Computer virus; terrorism; industrial espionage; crime