[Moderator: So let me see if I get the chain of events: hackers claim they got in and stole neat software.. media ooohs and ahhhs at it.. everyone and their dog with a clue reply that the articles are full of it.. someone goes as far as showing the software is available via anon ftp.. DOD finally figures it out enough to issue a statement.. the whole time we are slapping our collective heads wondering why this wasn't realized sooner. I think that covers it.] Forwarded From: Simon Gardner <junipert_private> Pentagon Challenges Claims Of Hackers By CHRIS ALLBRITTON, AP Cyberspace Writer NEW YORK (April 27, 1998 3:13 p.m. EDT) -- Hackers who broke into Pentagon computers and bragged that they had stolen the means to cripple the military's communications network instead took publicly available software that is almost worthless without the data to run it, security consultants and the Defence Department say. Security experts around the world scoffed Monday at the claims made by a hacker group calling itself "Masters of Downloading." "They may have gotten what they say they got," said Aaron Bornstein, a free-lance computer security consultant in New York. "But what they claim they could do with it is ridiculous." Last week, the group's 15 hackers said they broke into computers at the Defence Information Systems Agency and stole software. The program, they said, controls the military's Global Positioning System of satellites that are used to target missiles and coordinate troop movements. The group claimed it could shut down the military's networks with the stolen software, and threatened to sell it to terrorist groups or foreign governments. The pilfered software is not classified, said Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Hansen. Nor does it allow access to classified data, she said. And the software is useless without classified data, Hansen said. Supporting Hansen's assertions, Bornstein provided The Associated Press a link to the software available to anyone with a Web browser. The Masters of Downloading "are just trying to scare people," the consultant said. Another consultant, Shimon Gruper, a former Israeli army security expert, said he was confident that Masters of Downloading had not stolen anything dangerous. Other governments' top secret computers, he said, are not connected to the Internet or other public networks. "And," he said, "I'm sure the U.S. government is the same" -- an assertion the Pentagon spokeswoman confirmed. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Dimensional Communications (www.dim.com)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 12:51:52 PDT