Article

2005-05-10 Home Front: Tech

Swede Teen Uses ssh to Invade US Military/Government Computers

Much more at the link...

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of the Internet.

Now federal officials and computer security investigators have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a more extensive operation - involving a single intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe - in which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated.

Investigators in the United States and Europe say they have spent almost a year pursuing the case involving attacks on computer systems serving the American military, NASA and research laboratories.

The break-ins exploited security holes on those systems that the authorities say have now been plugged, and beyond the Cisco theft, it is not clear how much data was taken or destroyed. Still, the case illustrates the ease with which Internet-connected computers - even those of sophisticated corporate and government networks - can be penetrated, and also the difficulty in tracing those responsible.

Posted by badanov 2005-05-10 08:50|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 16yr old swede teen arrested

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-05-10 11:35|| 2005-05-10 11:35|| Front Page Top

#2 The "attacks" are on public websites, nothing classified or even important. Its main effect was a denial of service by trashing the functions of the router. The "theft" was probably someone downloading the binary image of operating system file, IOS.

Posted by OldSpook 2005-05-10 11:47|| 2005-05-10 11:47|| Front Page Top

#3 No need to crack Cisco's network to steal the source code for IOS. I'm sure it's readily available from Huawei employees.

Posted by Classical_Liberal 2005-05-10 11:59|| 2005-05-10 11:59|| Front Page Top

#4 In the Cisco case, the passwords to Cisco computers were sent from a compromised computer by a legitimate user unaware of the Trojan horse. The intruder captured the passwords and then used them to enter Cisco's computers

In my experience, getting a hold of a login is a case in 99% of successful intrusion, all the cracker has to do is then escalate privileges. Brute force attacks are usually spotted and defanged pretty fast.

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-05-10 20:56|| 2005-05-10 20:56|| Front Page Top

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