Big Blue in battle of the legals
IBM IS TRYING to get a case in which it is alleged that it hacked a legal company's email servers thrown out of court.
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IBM accused of hacking clients' email.
The case has been brought by legal and lobbying outfit Butera & Andrews. The law firm claims that it became aware that its email server was being hacked by unauthorised parties and hired a bunch of security experts to find the hacker.
The security experts reckoned IBM's office in Durham, North Carolina, had tried to penetrate the legal firm's inner sanctum more than 42,000 times.
IBM's briefs have applied to have the case chucked out because Biggish Blue had nothing to do with the plaintiff or its e-mail servers, and it has no idea who was trying to hack into its system. According to Law.com a spokesIBM says that the case should never have made it to court.
However m'learned friends at Butera & Andrews are asking IBM to hand over its employment records for the Durham office, as well as maintenance logs and administrative rights logs, among other things, for 82 Internet protocol addresses that are registered to IBM. Armed with this information it reckons it can find the hacker.
James Butera of Butera & Andrews reckons he already has an admission by IBM that its computer was owned by them, controlled by them and operated under their supervision. The outfit wants $60,000 which it says is how much it cost to tighten up security in the wake of the attacks.
The INQuirer