Marketplace: News Archives

Friday, October 27, 2000
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It's Friday, the 27th of October. I'm David Brancaccio.

The FBI is investigating a cyber break-in at the world's largest software company, Microsoft. Using a virus program called a "worm," computer hackers were able to gain access to the blueprints of some of Microsoft's latest software programs. As Marketplace's John Dimsdale reports, the company and computer security experts are taking the hacking case very seriously.

Dimsdale: "A company spokesman is calling it a deplorable act of industrial espionage. The worm program was able to enter Microsoft's computer network through a simple e-mail, opening a door for hackers to find a transfer the source codes, or blueprints, for Microsoft hardware."

Penenberg: "How can you trust the security of it's products when they can't even keep hackers out?"

Dimsdale: "Adam Penenberg is the co-author of Spooked: Espionage in Corporate America, coming out in December. He calls this a major embarrassment for Microsoft."

Penenberg: "The big fear is that the hackers not only downloaded the source code but they altered the original source code and how would you know that future Microsoft products don't have a bug in them."

Dimsdale: "First reports were that the source codes for Microsoft's Windows and Office software had been stolen. But later in the day, company spokesman Dan Leach downplayed the security breach."

Leach: "This situation appears to be much narrower than first thought. The investigation shows no evidence this intruder gained access to our major products like Windows ME, Windows 2000 or Office. The hacker appears to have been able to view some source code that is under development for a future product, but we've also confirmed there has been no modification of any source code."

Dimsdale: "Access to the Windows source code would give potential software developers the ability to created new products without having to buy the expensive blueprints. And there's a bigger threat, according to the technology editor of Interactive Week, Charles Babcock. In the wrong hands, the code could provide the tools to break into Windows-run servers all over the Internet."

Babcock: "The greater hazard would be someone could find a way to exploit Windows in a malicious way through viruses or Trojan horses or worms and bring down computer systems in a surprising way, in a way we don't yet know how to defend against."

Dimsdale: "The cyber-trail has reportedly led the FBI to St. Petersburg, Russia. But Adam Penenberg says the hacker, or hackers, could be anywhere in the world. In researching his book, Pennenberg found that businesses don't pay enough attention to protecting their information from break-ins via the Internet. In Washington, I'm John Dimsdale for Marketlplace."

With the oil producers cartel set to increase the pumping of oil, the price of crude fell nearly a dollar today to $32.74 a barrel today. The wholesale price of heating oil fell about 1.7 percent. OPEC's president says output will go up by half a million barrels a day starting Monday.

The Food and Drug Administration has decided to ban the use of a couple of powerful antibiotics used in the chickens we eat. Regulators say they're responsible for the rise in antibiotic resistant bugs in chickens and turkeys that are a significant hazard to the health of people. From the Marketplace Heath Desk, here's Helen Palmer.

Palmer: "There are a couple of hard names here. First the drugs: they're louroquinolones. They've been used widely and effectively for humans since 1986. They treat stomach bugs, including, and here's the other long word, campylobacter. It's endemic and harmless in poultry but can make people very sick. In the mid-1990s, these drugs were approved for use in animals. But the FDA soon noticed an unwelcome side effect. Campylobacter was becoming resistant to flouroquinolones."

Sundlof: "It rendered the drug less useful in humans for the treatment of this particular disease because it was being used in chickens."

Palmer: "Dr. Steven Sundlof is director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, which recommended the drug's withdrawal. But Richard Lobb, spokesperson of the National Chicken Council, says the poultry breeders think they're being unjustly blamed for these resistant pathogens."

Lobb: "They are used sparingly in just one or two percent of the flocks and we find it very hard to believe that such a limited usage could give rise to significant level of resistance."

Palmer: "What about antibiotic over-use in humans, he asks. That's a big problem too, says Dr. Stuart Levy, President of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, but he's delighted with the FDA's decision."

Levy: "I believe anywhere we use antibiotics in the food industry there is al ink between resistant bacteria produced there and resistant bacteria that find their way into people."

Palmer: "But the poultry breeders say it'll push up prices, just in time for Thanksgiving. From the Health Desk at WBGH Boston, I'm Helen Palmer for Marketplace."

And that's the top of our news for Friday. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 210.5 points, that's two percent. The Nasdaq Composite index rose 0.19 percent.