(update) Texas company lays out ‘hacking’ case against Minnesota Public Radio

David Brauer has more on Lookout Services’s allegations against a Minnesota Public Radio reporter, following a breach reported here previously.

[…]

In a Dec. 11 report, [MPR reporter] Aslanian said she was able to see “employee names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and hire dates” on Lookout’s web site “without using a password or encryption software.”

Lookout CEO Elaine Morley says that’s not the whole truth. She contends Aslanian did use a password and ID to penetrate Lookout’s security — and told Morley so during a Dec. 7 phone call. Later, Morley asserts, Aslanian used information from that penetration to view the state data, even though she didn’t need a password or encryption that time.

As you might expect, MPR isn’t willing to debate Lookout’s assertions. News director Mike Edgerly’s two-sentence statement: “We are aware of Lookout Services allegations concerning an investigative report by MPR’s Sasha Aslanian. Sasha’s story exemplified good, solid reporting and we stand by it.”

[…]

Morley says she’s sure Aslanian used a password and ID because the reporter said as much during a Dec. 7 phone call. “She told me ‘I am in your company’s database,’” Morley says. “I told her, ‘In my opinion, your source is hacking, and this is an unauthorized intrusion.’”

Morley says Lookout closed that vulnerability. However, the successful penetration exposed a new web address on which to model future attempts. Morley acknowledges Lookout screwed up by caching credentials on several web pages, rendering that security method effectively useless. The CEO says state and MPR computers added and subtracted things from the web address, finally getting through to the state info.

[…]

In a “demand letter” to MPR asking for an accounting of what was viewed, [Lookout Services’ attorney] Abbott cited the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which penalizes anyone who “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access and thereby obtains information from any protected computer.”

Criminal liability in such cases? “A fine or imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both.”

Of course, that assumes MPR did what Lookout alleges it did, a prosecutor decides it’s worth prosecuting, and a court finds guilt. The act also has provisions for civil liability.

James Quinn — a technology lawyer with Bloomington-based Larkin Hoffman who is not involved in the case — calls Lookout’s assertions “not a bullshit claim.”