Forwarded From: iteamt_private I N F O R M A T I O N W A R F A R E - N E W S B R I E F S Monday 06 July, 1998 Articles for today: 1. Teen hacker breaks into Cape Internet accounts 2. Hacker posts anti-nuke message on scores of sites 3. AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR, AF BATTLELABS ARE 'HERE TO STAY' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Teen hacker breaks into Cape Internet accounts (Boston Herald; 07/04/98) A 16-year-old Eastham computer hacker broke into the Cape's main Internet service provider and looked at its customers' 15,000 account files, Barnstable police said yesterday. "His parents didn't seem to have a clue about what he was doing," said Detective James Tamash. "They're cooperating with us 100 percent." He attends Nauset Regional High School and studies computers. Barnstable police and the attorney general's high-tech unit are now investigating whether the hacker and his friends also gained access to customer credit card numbers. "We believe so," Tamash said. "Right now we can't say for sure." Police searched the youth's bedroom at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday and confiscated his computer equipment after a long investigation that began in February with an anonymous fax sent to CAPEInternet of Osterville. The fax said a group of teenagers had gotten their hands on customers' log- on names and passwords, giving themselves free Internet access. As many as six Cape teens may be involved, including a Harwich youth who worked for a company called Doctor PC, the Cape Cod Times reported. CAPEInternet traced a security breach last month to Doctor PC in Harwich Center - the office where the company keeps modems that hook up 3,000 of its Cape computer users to the net. But CAPEInternet has no evidence the hackers obtained any credit card information from customer files, CI president W. Brooks McCarty said in a letter posted on the company's home page. The company has stepped up security and also moved its modems from Doctor PC to an undisclosed location. Investigators now are combing through the Eastham teen's computer files and expect to charge him with several crimes. His name was not released because he is a juvenile. (Copyright 1998) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hacker posts anti-nuke message on scores of sites (Reuters; 07/06/98) By James Glave SAN FRANCISCO (Wired) - An 18-year-old member of the anti-nuclear hacker group that last month wreaked havoc with e-mail and Web servers at India's atomic research center has struck again with another Internet political protest. In what may be the largest "mass hack" ever undertaken, the cracker, who goes by the name "JF," along with a number of anonymous colleagues, simultaneously defaced more than 300 Web sites late Thursday. The group replaced the sites' homepages with an image of a mushroom cloud and an anti-nuclear screed. "This mass takeover goes out to all the people out there who want to see peace in this world," read the 800-word declaration that graced an eclectic mix of general interest, entrepreneur, adult, sport, and fan sites until early Friday morning. Affected domains included sites for The World Cup, Wimbledon, The Ritz Casino, actor Drew Barrymore, and The Saudi Royal Family. Some of the sites were still defaced or down as of late Friday afternoon, when Wired News spoke with JF over Internet Relay Chat. "The year is 1998," wrote JF, who is based in England. "We should be moving towards world peace in the millennium, and nuclear warfare [and] testing is NO way forward. It can destroy the world," the teen said. "I'm only young; I don't want a hostile world on the edge of a nuclear conflict," he added. The mass hack happened almost by accident. While scanning a large network, looking for security weaknesses, JF and his colleagues came across a Web site hosting company called EasySpace. The firm, based in Kingston upon Thames, England, offers "virtual domain" hosting-an arrangement whereby multiple Web sites are located on a single server. "We ... came across this, at first by accident, then [we] realized what it was, and as we were planning a mass hack, we decided to put it into operation," JF said. The teen said that he and his colleagues-members of another group called Ashtray Lumberjacks-penetrated EasySpace's network with what they claimed was a nonpublic attack, and ran computer code that inserted the same altered Web page on all the sites hosted at EasySpace. The entire operation was completed in approximately one hour, he said. EasySpace representatives declined to comment, aside from forwarding to Wired News a copy of the email the company sent to affected customers. "This attacked (in the hacker's own spelling) coincided with us preparing to move our Easypost mail system onto a new server and receive upgraded software," the message read in part. "We will be re-installing the operating systems of the server your Web site is hosted on over the weekend and will be upgrading the security. Apologies for any inconvenience that may have been caused," the message concluded. The email included instructions for customers to restore their own Web sites, suggesting that EasySpace had no backups of its own. The protest Web page bore the logo of JF's group Milw0rm. Last month, the same group claimed responsibility for stealing email and deleting Web servers at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay, India. In the latest protest statement, the crackers expressed their disappointment that peace talks had not begun on the subcontinent. "This tension is not good, it scares you as much as it scares us. For you all know that this could seriously escalate into a big conflict between India and Pakistan and possibly even World War III, and this CANNOT happen," the text read. John Vranesevich, founder of the computer security Web site AntiOnline, said that mass Web page attacks, affecting multiple sites at one time, are not common events. "Usually any Internet Service Provider that hosts such a large number of domains has very good security procedures in place simply because they are usually a larger operation," Vranesevich said. Vranesevich added that the group was unusual in that its members appear to be driven as much by politics as they are by computer security issues. "They're not claiming to be hacking to help progress computer security and to help make new exploits known. They're doing it for political reasons; it's not the means that's important it's the end result," Vranesevich said. (Reuters/Wired) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFTER ONLY ONE YEAR, AF BATTLELABS ARE 'HERE TO STAY' By Greg Caires (Defense Daily; 07/02/98) Jul 2, 1998 (DEFENSE DAILY, Vol. 199, No. 6) -- Only one year after their formal establishment, the Air Force's six battlelabs are "for real and here to stay," according to the chief of the service's battlelab integration division. "Our's is a strategy of innovation...the traditional acquisition process is too slow and too cumbersome to affect real change," Air Force Col. Ron Kurjanowicz said yesterday. "The battlelabs can bring real change to how we do business and impact the Air Force sooner rather than later." Kurjanowicz, who ensures that the disparate battlelabs remain visible to the service's headquarters at the Pentagon, made his remarks yesterday at an Eaker Institute colloquium hosted by the Air Force Association (AFA) in Arlington, Va. AFA held the event in part to commemorate the battlelabs' first anniversary, as well as to expose industry representatives to the battlelab concept and to their commanders. The Air Force currently operates six battlelabs around the country. They include: the Air Expeditionary Battlelab at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho; the Space Battlelab at Schriever AFB, Colo.; the Information Warfare Battlelab at Kelly AFB, Texas; the Force Protection Battlelab at Lackland AFB, Texas; the Command and Control Battlelab at Hurlburt Field, Fla.; and the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab at Eglin AFB, Fla. The role of the nascent battlelabs is to identify innovative operational and logistical concepts, and to measure their potential for advancing the Air Force's core competencies. According to Kurjanowicz, the challenge facing the battlelabs during the next year is "what to do with our initiatives next," meaning how to introduce the battlelabs' more promising concepts into the Air Force. "That's going to be an uphill fight, because innovation always threatens existing paradigms," he said. Despite that, Kurjanowicz is confident that the battlelabs "will solve the implementation challenge...because the battlelabs enjoy the support of the Air Force's senior leadership." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The IW News Briefs are provided as a free service of iWarfare.com, if you have any articles you think would be of benefit to this news service, please email them to iwteamt_private ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to iw-newst_private, UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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