[ISN] Hackers Claim NSA Breach

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Thu Mar 20 2003 - 23:05:52 PST

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    http://www.securityfocus.com/news/3291
    
    By Kevin Poulsen
    SecurityFocus
    March 20 2003
    
    Hackers claim to have compromised a computer at the National Security
    Agency in Ft. Meade, Maryland. But their target was the least
    secretive organization imaginable within the massive intelligence
    agency: the public affairs office.
    
    And instead of scoring a cache of highly-classified documents about
    the NSA's global surveillance work, the purported hackers mostly just
    obtained a few biographies of agency personnel, and a handful of
    private, but routine, correspondences between NSA spokespersons and
    media outlets, including CNN and Forbes.
    
    The letters arrived at SecurityFocus Thursday morning as attachments
    to a short e-mail message listing the Internet IP and e-mail addresses
    for the agency's public affairs office, and the message "Please find
    attached some documents from Don and Trisha Weber, NSA."
    
    A NSA spokesperson confirmed that Don Weber works in the office, but
    otherwise refused to comment.
    
    In addition to the press material, the documents included a short NSA
    phone directory, and a four-page reference guide on handling outgoing
    e-mail problems, with advice on how to respond if an e-mail is
    rejected for foul language, or for user errors like attempting "to
    send [a] SECRET message from a SECRET to Unclassified" destination. A
    more recent version of the same document is available publicly from a
    Defense Department website.
    
    Journalist and NSA expert James Bamford says the apparent breach
    probably isn't a threat to national security.
    
    "I haven't heard of an NSA computer being hacked into before," says
    Bamford. "I certainly don't think that it's acceptable that even
    unclassified computers can be hacked into there, but it doesn't sound
    like they've gotten beyond the non-classified computers in public
    affairs."
    
    An e-mail message sent to the hackers' address in Switzerland was not
    immediately answered Thursday. The group signed their message "Nescafé
    Open Up", the slogan of an ad campaign for flavored instant-coffee.
    
    The hackers' motives aren't clear, but may be related to the United
    States' military action against Iraq, which, like past conflicts, has
    already spurred a rash of protest website defacements. The hackers'
    e-mail included a distribution list of approximately 500 e-mail
    addresses, most of which belong to the U.S. military.
     
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