Gates, Albright, Arafat among thousands targeted by hackers

GENEVA – Computer hackers obtained credit card details and other personal information for hundreds of attendees of World Economic Forum meetings, which annually draw such notables as Madeleine Albright, Bill Gates and Yasser Arafat.

Organizers of the annual gathering confirmed yesterday that hackers broke into a computer containing credit card numbers and other confidential data. But they denied reports that former President Clinton had been among the people compromised.

Anti-globalization protesters appeared to be behind the break-in and there was no indication the hackers had used any of the information maliciously.

Such acts, known as "hacktivism," are part of a relatively new way of combining hacking with political resistance.

Charles McLean, spokesman for the World Economic Forum, said hackers had obtained "proprietary data like credit card numbers" of 1,400 prominent people, but not necessarily those who attended the annual meetings of world leaders at Davos in the Swiss Alps.

The Zurich-based weekly SonntagsZeitung, which disclosed the security breach Sunday, said it had seen the contents of a CD-ROM that included data on Clinton, South African President Thabo Mbeki, China’s No. 2 ruler Li Peng, Palestinian leader Arafat and others.

SonntagsZeitung said the CD-ROM contained secured information on 27,000 people who have attended the global forum in recent years, including Clinton, former Secretary of State Albright and Microsoft founder Gates.

McLean dismissed that number as the mailing list of the forum’s magazine, and called some of the names in the article "wildly inaccurate." He would not elaborate.

The newspaper said its reporters had been shown 80,000 pages of information, including numbers of passports and personal cellular phones of many of the government and business leaders who have attend the annual gathering in Davos. It said the hackers also were able to get the "exact arrival and departure times, hotel names, room numbers, number of overnights, sessions attended" of all 3,200 people who attended Davos last month.

McLean said that was untrue. However, an "independent media" Web site run by anti-globalization activists published flight and programming information that appeared to be authentic based on when world leaders actually arrived and departed.

The forum, which organizes the meetings, filed a complaint yesterday with Geneva law enforcement authorities that requires state prosecutors to investigate and empowers them to stop dissemination of the data if they determine who has it, McLean said.