CRIME FW: [Information_technology] Daily News 11/12/03

From: George Heuston (GeorgeH@private)
Date: Wed Nov 12 2003 - 07:31:13 PST

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    From: information_technology-admin@private
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    Of InfraGard
    Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 6:50 AM
    To: Information Technology
    Subject: [Information_technology] Daily News 11/12/03
    
    November 10, Australian Associated Press - Hackers reach Australian
    Defense
    files. Hackers have reportedly accessed top-secret files inside the
    Australian Department of Defense. "There have been three incidents in
    which
    an external security breach has led to unauthorized access to computer
    systems," Senator Hill had told an inquiry into computer security in the
    public service. According to the minister, the Defense Department also
    reported 13 cases since 2000 of its own staff trying to hack into
    computer
    systems without authorization. A review of electronic security inside
    commonwealth agencies has reportedly uncovered a culture of theft and
    lax
    security inside the public service. The inquiry comes amid a series of
    thefts of computers containing classified information from a customs
    office
    at Sydney Airport and the Transport Department in Canberra. Submissions
    by
    the major departments to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and
    Audit
    has found that more than 1600 computers have vanished since 1998.
    Senator
    Hill said three computers stolen in the past two years contained
    information
    classified as "secret", but they had been recovered and the risk to
    national
    security had been assessed as low, he told the inquiry in a memo.
    Source:
    http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/10/1068329455162.html
    
    November 07, Government Computer News - Kansas auditors crack 1,000
    passwords. The Kansas Health and Environment Department has serious IT
    security and disaster recovery problems, the state's legislative auditor
    has
    found. The auditors said they used password-cracking software to
    decipher
    more than 1,000 of the department's passwords-including several
    administrative passwords-or 60 percent of the total, in three minutes.
    The
    department began fixing the security weaknesses and other problems found
    in
    its systems as soon as it learned of them, department secretary Roderick
    L.
    Bremby said in response to the report. "The department's anti-virus
    system
    was badly flawed, allowing computers to become infected with a large
    number
    of different viruses, worms and Trojan horses," said the report. "The
    department's firewall was poorly configured, creating several large
    holes in
    and out," the report said. Auditors found that the department lacked or
    failed to enforce many basic security policies, such as procedures for
    incident response, physical security, configuration documentation and
    former-user account deletion. They also found several major problems
    with
    security planning. Source:
    http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24132-1.html
    
    November 06, CNET News.com - Attempted attack on Linux kernel foiled. An
    unknown intruder attempted to insert a Trojan horse program into the
    code of
    the next version of the Linux kernel, stored at a publicly accessible
    database. The public database was used only to provide the latest beta,
    or
    test version, of the Linux kernel to users of the Concurrent Versions
    System
    (CVS), a program designed to manage source code. The changes, which
    would
    have introduced a security flaw to the kernel, never became a part of
    the
    Linux code and were never a threat, said Larry McVoy, founder of
    software
    company BitMover and primary architect of the source code database
    BitKeeper, Thursday, November 6. An intruder apparently compromised one
    server earlier, and the attacker used his access to make a small change
    to
    one of the source code files, McVoy said. The change created a flaw that
    could have elevated a person's privileges on any Linux machine that runs
    a
    kernel compiled with the modified source code. The recent incident
    raises
    questions about the security of open-source development methods,
    particularly how well a development team can guarantee that any changes
    are
    not introducing intentional security flaws. While Microsoft code has had
    similar problems, closed development is widely considered to be harder
    to
    exploit in that way. Source:
    http://news.com.com/2100-7355_3-5103670.html
    
    AlertCon: 2 out of 4
    https://gtoc.iss.net Security Focus
    
    ThreatCon: 2 out of 4
    http://analyzer.securityfocus.com/
    
    Current Virus and Port Attacks
    Virus: #1 Virus in the United States: WORM_LOVGATE.G
    Source: http://wtc.trendmicro.com/wtc/wmap.html, Trend World Micro Virus
    Tracking Center
    [Infected Computers, North America, Past 24 hours, #1 in United States]
    
    Top 10 Target Ports 135 (epmap), 1434 (ms?sql?m), 137 (netbios?ns), 21
    (ftp), 445 (microsoft?ds), 161 (snmp), 80 (www), 139
    (netbios?ssn), 1433 (ms?sql?s), 53 (domain)
    Source: http://isc.incidents.org/top10.html; Internet Storm Center
    
    
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