[ISN] Man captured in Diyarbakir turns out to be PKK hacker

[InfoSec News]

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=159211

Today's Zaman
20.11.2008 

A man taken into custody on suspicion of theft last week has admitted 
that he is a hacker working for the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party 
(PKK), police investigators said Wednesday.

A police search of a computer belonging to R.C., 20, who was stopped in 
Diyarbakir on suspicion of theft, has revealed files containing 
classified information belonging to institutions including the General 
Staff and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT).

A search of the computer, seized coincidentally during a police raid 
against the sellers of stolen goods in Diyarbakir, revealed that the 
suspect had not only sent MIT documents to the PKK, but also had an 
"online friendship" with Murat Karay.lan, the commander of PKK militants 
in northern Iraq. R.C. was arrested on Nov. 14 on charges of "acquiring 
state secrets and confidential documents in the name of the PKK 
terrorist organization"

In his initial testimony, R.C. said the computer was his own and that he 
had downloaded the MIT file from a Web site "out of curiosity." As part 
of the expanded police investigation a search of the suspect's home was 
conducted, yielding many compact discs of domestic and foreign films. 
The police examined the discs' contents carefully and found that some of 
the CDs marked as films also stored classified information from the 
General Staff, MIT and other institutions.

However, in his testimony to a prosecutor during the week, R.C., a high 
school dropout and a self-taught computer genius, described in detail 
how he entered security forces and intelligent units' computers using a 
computer virus named Poison Ivy, which he had developed. He said the 
contact between him and the PKK's Karay.lan was established through a 
terrorist friend of his who resides in France. Sources also quoted R.C. 
as describing his acquaintance with Karayilan as: "I know Murat 
Karayilan through the Internet. I haven't seen him face-to-face."

The young man also said, "I wanted to confess everything I did because I 
thought the PKK would stage terrorist attacks killing innocent people 
using the information I gave them and because my conscience is uneasy."