Waterford men hacked store files, FBI alleges
Laptop setup used for system access, agent tells court
November 11, 2003
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Two young men sitting in a car in the parking lot of a Lowe's home improvement store in Southfield repeatedly hacked into the company's national computer network over the past two weeks, gaining access to credit card numbers and other information, federal prosecutors said Monday.

It's unclear what the two men planned to do with the information.

They may have been engaged in the recent hacker craze known as wardriving -- cruising around with a specially equipped laptop and an antenna searching for unsecured wireless networks hooked to the Internet. Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Reynolds said the investigation is under way.

Paul Timmins, 22, and Adam Botbyl, 20, both of Waterford, didn't explain what they were up to when they appeared Monday in U.S. District Court. Magistrate Virginia Morgan told them anything they said could be used against them in court.

Timmins said he is a $38,000-a-year computer network and security specialist for a Southfield software company. Botbyl said he's a student at ITT Technical Institute in Troy. Morgan released both men on $10,000 unsecured bonds.

FBI agent Denise Stemen said in an affidavit that Lowe's alerted the FBI recently that intruders had broken into its computer at company headquarters in North Carolina, altered its computer programs and illegally intercepted credit card transactions.

Stemen said the company's computer system had been hacked repeatedly from Oct. 25 through Nov. 7. She said that the intruders gained access through the national network by logging onto a user account over the wireless network of the Lowe's store in Southfield.

Once in the system, the intruders gained access to Lowe's stores in six states plus the headquarters system, Stemen said.

She said hackers altered the software Lowe's uses to process credit card purchases nationwide. On Nov. 5, the hackers installed a malicious program that disabled several computers at the Long Beach, Calif., store, she said.

Lowe's spokeswoman Chris Ahearn said the company has taken steps to beef up security, but wouldn't elaborate.

In alerting the FBI, Lowe's security said the intruders probably were operating within 1,000 feet of the Southfield store.

FBI agents set up surveillance Friday night and said they spotted the two men sitting with laptops in a Pontiac Grand Prix equipped with antennae. Agents followed the men and apparently arrested them Saturday. Agents also searched their apartments in Waterford.

During their court appearance Monday, Morgan ordered both men not to use computer equipment or access the Internet except at work or school.

The men are charged with causing damage to a protected computer system, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, upon conviction. Reynolds told Morgan that the men, who were arrested on a criminal complaint, are likely to be indicted within a few weeks in Michigan or Charlotte, N.C.

Wardriving is named after the old hacker practice called wardialing, the stunt that actor Matthew Broderick made famous in the 1983 film WarGames. Broderick's character hacked into a military computer and nearly triggered a nuclear war with Russia.




Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at 313-223-4490.

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