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70 lines
3.2 KiB
Text
70 lines
3.2 KiB
Text
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#### PHRACK PRESENTS ISSUE 16 ####
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^*^*^*^Phrack World News, Part 1^*^*^*^
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**** File 8 of 12 ****
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>From the 9/16 San Francisco Chronicle, page A19:
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GERMAN HACKERS BREAK INTO NASA NETWORK (excerpted)
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Bonn
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A group of West German computer hobbyists broke into an international
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computer network of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and
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rummaged freely among the data for at least three months before they were
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discovered, computer enthusiasts and network users said yesterday.
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An organization in Hamburg called the Chaos Computer Club, which
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claimed to be speaking for an anonymous group that broke into the network,
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said the illicit users managed to install a "Trojan horse," and gain entry
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into 135 computers on the European network.
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A "Trojan Horse" is a term for a permanent program that enables
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amateur computer enthusiasts [as opposed to professionals?], or "hackers,"
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to use a password to bypass all the security procedures of a system and gain
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access to all the data in a target computer.
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[Actually, this type of program is a 'back door' or a 'trap door.' The group
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may very well have *used* a Trojan horse to enable them to create the back
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door, but it probably wasn't a Trojan horse per se. A Trojan horse is a
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program that does something illicit and unknown to the user in addition to its
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expected task. See Phrack xx-x, "Unix Trojan Horses," for info on how to
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create a Trojan horse which in turn creates a trap door into someone's
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account.]
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The NASA network that was broken into is called the Space Physics
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Analysis Network [ooh!] and is chiefly designed to provide authorized
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scientists and organizations with access to NASA data. The security system in
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the network was supplied by an American company, the Digital Equipment Corp.
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[Probably DECNET. Serves them right.] Users said the network is widely used
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by scientists in the United States, Britain, West Germany, Japan and five
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other countries and does not carry classified information.
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A Chaos club spokesman, Wau Holland, denied that any data had been
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changed. This, he said, went against "hacker ethics."
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West German television reports said that computer piracy carries a
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penalty of three years in prison in West Germany. The government has not said
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what it plans to do.
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The Chaos club clearly views its break-in as a major coup. Holland,
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reached by telephone in Hamburg, said it was "the most successful running of a
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Trojan horse" to his knowledge, and the club sent a lengthy telex message to
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news organizations.
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It said the "Trojan horse" was spotted by a user in August, and the
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infiltrating group then decided to go public because "they feared that they
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had entered the dangerous field of industry espionage, economic crime, East-
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West conflict...and the legitimate security interests of high-tech
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institutions."
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The weekly magazine Stern carried an interview with several anonymous
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hobbyists who showed how they gained access to the network. One described his
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excitement when for the first time he saw on his screen, "Welcome to the NASA
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headquarters VAX installation."
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According to Chaos, the hobbyists discovered a gap in the Digital VAX
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systems 4.4 and 4.5 and used it to install their "Trojan Horse."
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[Excerpted and Typed by Shooting Shark. Comments by same.]
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