Internet Alaska 's Messick Helps Lead National Internet Bust

During a special ceremony on March 17th Internet Alaska received special recognition from the Anchorage Police Department for its help in apprehending persons allegedly responsible for a nation-wide string of Internet crimes, including several involving Alaskans. Singled out for specific praise was Internet Alaska Network Security Officer Mike Messick, who worked with police officials on both the local and national efforts.

The incident began after a credit card number theft attempt was aimed at Internet Alaska customers on December 26, 1999. Although the scam was identified and contained in Alaska within hours, five credit cards belonging to Alaskans were stolen and abused during a brief time period. Shortly thereafter, Anchorage Police Department Detective Glen Klinkhart initiated a formal investigation with Messick's assistance.

Network Security Officer Mike Messick, left, and Anchorage Police Department Detective Glenn Klinkhart

The resulting efforts revealed that the suspects were most likely located outside Alaska, presumably in the San Diego, California area. As the investigation continued, Klinkhart and Messick were also successful in detecting and stopping the suspects from stealing credit cards from over six additional Internet Service Providers. According to estimates from the Anchorage Police Department, over 2,400 potential victims were saved by the intervention, which affected a large list of potential ISP targets.

On March 16th, the San Diego Police Department, in conjunction with the San Diego office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Anchorage Police Department, arrested two boys at a San Diego high school on charges of Internet credit card theft and fraud. The two students are believed to be responsible for credit card thefts from over thirteen different states including Alaska.

During such scams, credit card numbers or "cardz" are illegally obtained from unsuspecting customers. Using fake Internet web pages that closely resemble the live web pages of a victim Internet Service Provider (ISP) web site, the suspects deceive consumers by sending emails detailing billing "problems" with individual Internet accounts. The victims are then directed to the fake web site to provide personal information, including credit card numbers.

During the joint investigation, it was revealed that the suspects purportedly scammed as many as 40 different Internet Service Providers and hundreds of customers using this technique. The Anchorage Police Department has identified victims in over 14 different states, and believe that over $50,000 in property was purchased or illegally obtained by the suspects.

A Special Message from Internet Alaska President Michael Jalone

Internet Alaska has always recognized the need for security and vigilance to protect our customers and our business. Because of this, we take hacker attacks and fraud attempts very seriously, and employ specialists for the sole reason of countering such activities.

Although many ISP's do a good job of monitoring their networks and take aggressive steps to stop hackers or others attempting to disrupt service, we made a conscious decision almost two years ago to take an additional step and spend company resources to work with law enforcement agencies to find and arrest these new cyber criminals.

Today's announcement of the apprehension, in San Diego, California, of two individuals believed to be responsible for the billing fraud perpetrated against some of our customers last December is the culmination of a tremendous amount of time and work by our chief security officer, Mike Messick, and Anchorage Police Department Detective Glen Kinkhart.

Not only did Mike and Glen find these "bad guys", they also prevented them from obtaining over 2,000 stolen credit cards from eighteen other ISP's across the country. It is an amazing success story in which Mike and Glen were able to develop new tools that will continue to help law enforcement agencies in the future. Internet Alaska is proud of the partnership we have developed with the Anchorage Police Department and the diligent and dedicated work of Glen and Mike.

Congratulations, Mike, Glen and all the Internet Alaska customers who helped discover the fraud and assisted in tracking down the perpetrators!

Michael Jalone
President
Internet Alaska, Inc.

For more information about keeping your online experience safe, please see our Security Guidelines.