Forwarded From: blueskyt_private Wardialer Goes Corporate by Michael Stutz 5:45 p.m. 7.Oct.98.PDT Wardialing was made popular in the 1983 film, War Games, but despite the Hollywood plug, many corporations are still vulnerable to this kind of cracker exploit. And now wardialers are on the street. Sandstorm Enterprises unveiled the first commercial wardialer last week. A standard for crackers, the software programs dial telephone numbers and search for open connections that might serve as entry points to computer or telecommunications systems. "[Wardialing] remains one of the best ways to bypass a properly deployed firewall," said Brian Martin, senior security engineer for penetration-assessment consultants RSI. "While the media and many security companies harp on having expensive and elaborate firewalls, admins repeatedly leave unsecured modems behind the firewall -- often allowing full access to the corporate Intranet." PhoneSweep, available for Microsoft's Windows 95, 98, and NT operating systems, is a graphical wardialer that uses a commercial SQL database to record the numbers it reaches. Its features include brute-force username and password guessing, as well as screening fax-machine detection. It also avoids the accidental dialing of 911. "It goes far beyond what any wardialer can do," said Simson Garfinkel, Sandstorm chief financial officer and co-author of the program. Garfinkel is a former contributor to HotWired, a division of Wired Digital. Most of the current wardialers were written in the 1980s by high school students interested in committing toll fraud, said Garfinkel. The more recent ones, he added, were built by crackers who wanted to commit computer fraud. Martin said that many of PhoneSweep's features -- including fax screening and multimodem support -- can be found on some of the free wardialers, like ToneLoc. "However, I think this tool might be quite useful," Martin said. "Unlike the free tools out there, this one is designed with corporate audit specifically in mind -- which is the key." Peter Shipley, founder of Berkeley, California-based security consulting firm Network Security Associates, has been running a research study on wardialing. Shipley said he has dialed about 4.8 million numbers, gaining access to systems that controlled a company's Internet connection, environment controls for large buildings, and a fire department deployment system. Shipley said that password guessing is only good if the program can automatically determine the kind of system it is running -- a feature that no wardialer has. Martin added that nothing beats interacting with a found system hands-on. "If I was a security-savvy admin, it would be trivial to fool this program into thinking my system was something else," Martin said. PhoneSweep Basic, which costs US$980, controls one modem and holds 300 numbers in a scanning profile. PhoneSweep Plus, for $2,800, can control four modems simultaneously and holds 10,000 numbers -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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