Hackers have helped logging firms in Brazil evade limits on tree felling, says a Greenpeace report. The hi-tech criminals penetrated a computer system designed to monitor logging in the Brazilian state of Para. Once inside the system, hackers issued fake permits so loggers could cut down far more timber than environmental officials were prepared to allow. Greenpeace estimates that 1.7m cubic metres of illegal timber may have been removed with the aid of the hackers. The hack was made possible by a decision in 2006 to do away with paper forms to help monitor whether logging and charcoal firms were keeping to the quotas they were set. Instead, the Amazon state of Para turned to a fully-computerised system that issued travel permits for the timber logging firms were removing. The intent was that travel permits would stop being issued once logging companies had reached their annual quota. With the help of the hackers, Brazilian logging firms were able to issue fake permits allowing them to bust through these caps. The companies behind the mass hack attack got away with two billion reals (£564m) the estimated value of the timber illegally sold. The satellite photo shown here shows the extent of this scam on the forest in the Amazon. Via (BBC News)
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