Cyber vandals hit DISA sites

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Cyber vandals hit DISA sites

BY George I. Seffers May 28, 2001 RELATED LINKS

In a two-day rampage against U.S. government Web sites, a group of cyber vandals dubbed PoizonB0x, attacked two sites maintained by the Defense Information Systems Agency, the organization tasked with defending military networks.

The attacks, which included the two Defense Department sites and nine U.S. government sites, were conducted May 24 and 25. The group also participated in an apparent multi-group attack on California state sites.

In a terse confirmation of the attack, a DISA spokeswoman replied, "Yes, two Defense Enterprise Computing Center publicly accessible Web sites were defaced. The group claiming responsibility was PoisonB0x." She added that no classified networks were infiltrated and that other than the defacements, no harm was done.

The two DOD Web sites belonged to DECCs in St. Louis and San Diego, according to information provided by Attrition.org, a group of volunteers who maintain a Web site that many information warriors in the military rely on for news and information about hackers. The information was confirmed by DISA.

PoizonB0x defaced nine other government Web sites, including:

The chief information officer of the General Services Administration. NASA’s Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments. The Arcata [Calif.] Fish and Wildlife Office. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of California. The U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas. The group also participated in what appeared to be a multi-group effort to deface California state government Web sites. Other groups said to be involved include Hi-Tech Hate and tty0, according to information provided by Attrition.

In each of the PoizonB0x attacks, the defacements consist of solid black backgrounds with large white letters stating that "PoizonB0x Wuz Here."

In response to e-mailed questions, a PoizonB0x representative said it was a "pice of cake," getting into DISA's systems and that they could have taken advantage of three or more other vulnerabilities. PoizonB0x said that DISA apparently was unaware of the penetration and that no harm was done other than the defacements.

"damage? nope, maybe coz i was a lil drunk and lazy, coz i think i could execute some viruses or backdoors there. i could also format all hdds and shutdown the system. and u know, i looked through almost all papers there and i did find them interesting. and, heh, i had an idea to edit some of 'em but i decided to leave the system," the representative said.

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0528/web-disa-05-28-01.asp

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 30, 2001

Answers

The biggest fear is that the hackers are only "testing the waters", and only rehearsing for the REAL attack, which will be coordinated and devastating, resulting in a bad-case Y2K-like event of unknown timing, but comparably disruptive effects.

However, forewarned is forearmed. The main hope is that the victims have learned the hard way, (and others the easy way) to prepare; both by beefing up computer security AND "preparing for Y2K" at home in their personal lives. And this includes everybody.

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), May 30, 2001.


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