Cierra Hobbs

Information Literacy


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Russian hackers who are being called the Sandworm Team have hacked into iSight
Partners emails through malware. Officials fear the group may have hacked into other companies
as well. The hackers were able to gain access to classified government information through a bug
in Microsoft which was found in all of the recent versions of Microsoft. Nearly 68 % of all
companies throughout the world use Microsoft and are at risks of having their computers hacked.
The malware used an email disguised as a Power Point of Russian terrorists and when opened
emails and documents were stolen from the accounts. iSight Partners were able to partially trace
the hackers actions because a computer server sending messages to computers that were hacked
left instructions up on how to use the specific malware. The Sandworm Team is also believed to
have hacked into other groups such as a European government agency, a telecom company, and
a Polish energy firm.
Keywords: Russia,hackers, Sandworm team
Search Engines: Google, Bing
Google returned more technical websites that focus more on the technical aspect of the
malware then the information that was stolen. Bing returned more news websites that were
reputable. Both Bing and Google retrieved information that was relevant to the keywords that
were entered. Bing would be better to use for searching using the keywords because all of the
articles were either part of online newspapers or reputable news websites.
1. The article Russian Hackers Used Bug in Microsoft Windows for Spying, Report Says
was written October 14, 2014. The article has not been updated in the last few days.
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2. The article directly addresses the hackers use of malware to obtain information from
Russian adversaries and the methods hackers used to gather the data.
3. The author of the article is Mark Scott, a writer for the NY times. There is no evidence to
support his qualifications for writing the article.
4. The information written in the article is confirmed in several other sources such as CNN,
CBS, and the Huffington Post. The evidence in the article is supported by a report from
iSight that stated the information published in the NY times article.
5. There is no bias in the article the information was written specifically to inform the
public of the Sandworm teams actions.
Keywords: Hacking laws and Legislation
Database: Academic Journal
Academic Journal was used because it is a database that only returns scholarly journals that are
all relative to the search title.
The scholarly article The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act should not apply To the Misuse of
Information Accessed with Permission was fairly easy to find although access to the database
did require a student ID and password. The article was published in June 2014 in The Creighton
Law Review. The author of this article is David J. Schmitt who has written for several law
journals. The online article Ukraine government, NATO, targeted by Sandworm Team
hackers was very easy to access because CBS is a public website. The article was written on
October 14, 2014 and contains information that is recent. Bob Orr is the author of the article but,
there is no evidence to support his credibility to write the article. The information in the
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scholarly journal is much more credible than the online journal and the author of the scholarly
journal seems to be more authorized to write about the information.
Works Cited (MLA format)
Pagliery, Jose. "Russian Hackers Exploit Windows to Spy on West." CNNMoney. Cable News
Network, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
<http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/14/technology/security/russia-hackers/index.html>.
Orr, Bob. "Ukraine Government, NATO, Targeted by "Sandworm Team" Hackers." CBSNews.
CBS Interactive, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-government-hacked-by-sandworm-team/>.
Scott, Mark. "Russian Hackers Used Bug in Microsoft Windows for Spying, Report Says." The
New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/business/international/russian-hackers-used-bug-
in-microsoft-windows-for-spying-report-says.html?_r=0>.
Schmitt, David. "THE COMPUTER FRAUD AND ABUSE ACT SHOULD NOT APPLY TO
THE MISUSE OF INFORMATION ACCESSED WITH PERMISSION." Creighton Law
Review 47.3 (2014): 423-58. AcademicSearch Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.
<http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ccbcmd.idm.oclc.org/ehost/command/detail?sid=cc122556-
5c24-461e-9490-
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a2f9e869fcb4@sessionmgr4005&vid=13&hid=4107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2
ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&jid=VS8>.
Karanasiou, Argyro P. "The Changing Face of Protests in the Digital Age: On Occupying
Cyberspace and Distributed-Denial-of-Services (DDoS) Attacks." International Review of Law,
Computers & Technology 28.1 (2013): 98-113. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
<http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ccbcmd.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=14&sid=cc122
556-5c24-461e-9490-
a2f9e869fcb4@sessionmgr4005&hid=4107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY2
9wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=94723770>.