Grey hat hair hacker suspect charged in Maserati extortion case

A 60-year-old man has been charged with hacking and attempting extortion on Monday over an alleged attack on the customer database of luxury car firm Maserati. Bruce Mengler, of Solana Beach, near San Diego, stands accused of lifting a database of customers who took trial drives of Maserati motors after hacking into the car …

[kns2c]

Maserati must be doing really bad...

... if even with a free meal the test drives attracted only 4 people. Maybe they could try this promotion with more success a few miles south of San Diego.

[Chris]

a meal at Omaha Steaks?!

Omaha Steaks is a mail-order meat company. They have some brick & mortar stores as well, but I wouldn't want to eat a meal at one. If I was able to afford a Maserati, I wouldn't need (or want) my meals delivered by FedEx. Just who was this promotion aimed at?

[Nicholas Ettel]

@kns2c

The article only said that he used 4 individuals' names, not that those were ALL the names in that database. Yes, I saw the coat. Still.

But, that guy obviously had no idea how to hack for profit... as that database was hardly profitable (in the grand scheme of things) or really worth his efforts, which probably involved hitting the enter key on a Metasploit tool. The guy's a fool; good on Maserati. In all honesty, though, I blame Xenu.

[Mark]

Point of Contact

Is there a point of contact I can use to find out if my information was leaked? Is the company offering assitance to help offset any damages?

If people find out I test drove a Maserati, this could destroy my life...

[Brian Miller]

Extortion is dumb

What is it with all these morons that want to commit extortion? Didn't Mengler figure out that it was a no-brainer for Maserati to drop a dime on him? Don't try to extort a low-value target. Sheesh.

Maybe Maserati had actually set it up as a honey pot, just for grins and giggles.

[Marvin the Martian]

Were it long-distance test drives?

Were these testdrives from one dealer to another? If so, a steak is serious underpayment.

Flames needed for steak payment.

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG

who included this story - what a pile of 'slow news day'

yawn - some real UK IT News plz

[Anonymous Coward]

Lemme guess...

He test-drove a Maserati and was NOT given a voucher?

:-)