CSCD 303Essential Computer SecurityFall 2010

Lecture 3 - Hackers and AttackersReading: Chapters 3, 7, 16

Overview• Hackers and Attackers

– Definitions– History

• Past• Recent

– Motivation• Glory, Fame• Hacktivism• Money• Cyberterror

– Resources

Terms Again

• Hacker Defined• People engaged in circumvention of computer

security, unauthorized remote computer break-ins, but also includes those who debug or fix security problems

• Its earliest known meaning referred to an unauthorized user of telephone company network, a phone phreaker

More Definitions

• Blackhat Hackers– Breaks into computers with malicious intent– Distinguished from ethical Hackers who break

into computers for publicizing security problems

– Members of this group, destroy data, disrupt services and wreck havoc on computers and users

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Attacker Groups

• Whitehat Hackers• Hackers in this group are skilled• Often belong to a hacker group

– L0pht, Masters of Deception ( old groups …)

• Feel they have a mission to improve the security of the computer world• Avoid damage to network and systems• Inform and educate system administrators

about fixes to their security

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Attacker Groups

• Psychological Profile of Elite Hackers• Most elite hackers ...• Different values and beliefs than

society • White hats believe they are performing

a service for society by exposing poor security practices• Sometimes have a tenuous grasp on

reality because they live mostly in the cyber world• Examples: Rob Morris, Kevin Mitnick

More Definitions

• Script Kiddies– Wannabe hackers– Little knowledge of what they are doing– Exploits they use, have typically been written

by others more knowledgeable

Definitions• Cyber Terrorists

– The FBI definition

• Premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which result in violence against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents

– James Lewis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Use of computer network tools to shut down critical national infrastructure (such as energy, transportation, government operations) or to coerce or intimidate a government or civilian population

Definitions

• Cyber Terrorists– Cyber security experts have long worried

about cyber terrorists wrecking havoc on our critical infrastructure systems

– Has not happened yet on widespread basis– Cyber security experts are divided over

whether it is possible – What do you think?

Hackers

• Everyone thinks hacker = criminal• Not True!!!

– Hackers have subculture not-mainstream• Dress in black, spend a lot of time in front of

their computers, fascinated with technology, can potentially do scary things to people's data

• All of this creates a mistrust and fear of them• Like to hang out in groups too• Have strange group names: Cult of the Dead Cow, Demon Industry, Hell

of Web

Hacker History

• Phone Phreakers– Learn as much as possible about

telephone system without getting caught – Use knowledge to their advantage• Free phone calls

– Most famous - John Draper - Captain Crunch–Why was he called that?

History - Phone Phreakers• Captain Crunch - 1971– Discovered a toy whistle found in a box of

Captain Crunch cereal• Emitted a tone, 2600 Hz tone• Exact frequency need to tell phone system

to hang up the call, but used other tones then to call numbers - result was free phone call• Late 60's and Early 70's, all toll trunks were

sensitive to this tone, ATT did a fatal cost cutting measure, designed system so that signaling and voice used the same circuit

History - Phone Phreakers

• Others discovered secret ...• Made devices to emit signal, “blue boxes”• Worked until phone companies replaced

old switches with newer electronic switching systems• Trivia: What famous PC computer founder

was part of John Draper's computer club ?

http://www.webcrunchers.com/origins.html

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History - Famous Hackers• Eric Corley (also known as Emmanuel Goldstein)

• Long standing publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and founder of the H.O.P.E. conferences.

• Been part of the hacker community since the late '70s.

• Kevin Mitnick• A former computer criminal who now speaks, consults, and authors books about social engineering and network security.

• Robert Morris• Now a professor at MIT• The son of the chief scientist at the National Computer

Security Center — part of the National Security Agency (NSA)

• Cornell University graduate student accidentally unleashed an Internet worm in 1988 (oops ….)

• Thousands of computers were infected and subsequently crashed.

History Recent Hackers

• Recent Black and White Hat Hackers– List of hackers including some recent

folks can be found here, includes software developers

http://www.autistici.org/rez/hackers.php

Richard Stallman

History Famous Hacker Groups

• CULT OF THE DEAD COW, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas– Produce an ezine called, Cult of the Dead Cow http://www.cultdeadcow.com/cms/textfile_index.php3– Responsible for the practice of Hacktivism

• Combining Hacking with Social justice• They targeted Google in allowing China to filter

Internet traffic– Well known tools

• Back Orifice - Remote control of others computers• Whisker - IDS evasion

"Goolag - exporting censorship, one search at a time"

History - Famous Hacker Groups• L0pht Heavy Industries was famous hacker collective

active between 1992 and 2000, physically in Boston, Massachusetts area– 1998, all seven members of L0pht (Brian Oblivion,

Kingpin, Mudge, Space Rogue, Stefan Von Neumann, John Tan, Weld Pond) famously testified before Congress that they could shut down the entire Internet in 30 minutes

– 2000, L0pht Heavy Industries merged with startup @stake, completing L0pht's slow transition from an underground organization into a "whitehat" computer security company• Symantec bought @stake in 2004

– L0pht produced L0phtcrack a password cracker program

History - Famous Hacker Groups• Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influential hacker organizations– CCC based in Germany and currently has over

4,000 members, http://www.ccc.de/?language=en– CCC more widely known for public demonstrations

of security risks• 1996, CCC members demonstrated attack against

Microsoft's ActiveX technology, changing personal data in a Quicken database from outside• In 2008, CCC published fingerprints of German

Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schäuble, also included fingerprint on film that readers could use to fool fingerprint readers

Hacktivism • Motivation: political reasons• Something called “hacktivism” is

political motivation combined with cyber activism

• Example: Defacing certain web sites to embarrass a country or agency– FBI and the CIA had their web sites

defaced numerous times

CIA.gov defacement example

A turkish group, known as turkguvenligi.info, managed to exploit a SQL injection flaw and insert a record that redirected the "events" page to an image with their site name.

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Hacktivism• FloodNet, Java applet that repeatedly

sends browser reload commands– In theory, when enough EDT participants

are simultaneously pointing the FloodNet URL toward an opponent site, critical mass prevents further entry– Actually, this has rarely been attained– Developed before botnets

• FloodNet's power lies more in simulated threat!

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Hacktivism

• Older Examples– 1998 LoU members Bronc Buster and Zyklon

disabled firewalls in order to allow China's Internet users uncensored access to Internethttp://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,16545,00.html

– 1998 X-Ploit defaced the websites of Mexico's Finance Ministry and Health Ministry to protest government of President Ernesto Zedillo and show solidarity with the Zapatista rebellion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/146645.stm

Cybercrime• Who is responsible for most Cybercrime?

– Countries• Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Brazil• Dave Emm of Kaspersky Labs says

– “It’s difficult to put a figure on it, probably China at the top, and that’s more than 50 per cent.

» Next would be between Russia and Latin America. A lot of the banking trojans originate out of Latin America”

– Roger Thompson, of AVG, believes that cybercrime can come from anywhere:

» “While there are a lot of malware and web threats coming from Russia and China, there is also lots of activity in Turkey, Romania, Brazil and the US”

http://pcplus.techradar.com/node/3066

Cybercrime • Motivation is mostly money

– Criminals want to make money typically by illegal means

– Extortion, blackmail, theft, are all alive and well in the cyber world

– Even physical security can be compromised if we include cyber stalking

– May be other motivation such as malice against a company or government agency

CybercrimeExploit Users Through Social Network Sites

http://www.bmighty.com/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208402877• Unsuspecting individuals frequently download data, could contain

malware such as viruses and Trojan horses• National Cyber Security Alliance (NSCA) found

– 83% of users downloaded unknown files from other people's profiles– Potentially opened their PCs to attack

• 57% of people who use social networking sites admit to worrying about becoming a victim of cybercrime– Many divulge information that could put them at risk– Three out of four users give out personal information

• e-mail address, name, or birthday that can be used to perpetrate identity theft

– According to the NCSA. Amazingly, 4% have even listed their Social Security numbers somewhere on their social network page

Cybercrime

http://www.out-law.com/page-7791

• Cybercrime has become a profession and the demographic of your typical cybercriminal is changing– Was geek, now more organized gangster

traditionally associated with drug-trafficking, extortion and money laundering

Guillaume Lovet Author

Cyber Crime

Example … Marketing a stolen online bank account

– Sell the information to gain authorized control over a bank account with a six-figure balance

– Cost to obtain this information is about $400

Cyber Crime

• The probable marketplace for the sale– A hidden IRC (Internet Relay Chat) chat room– $400 fee will most likely be exchanged in

some form of virtual currency such as e-gold– Several different protagonists may be involved

in this crime

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Cybercrime• Credit Card Theft – Growing problem – 2005 - More than 40 million credit card

numbers belonging to U.S. consumers were accessed by computer hacker, at risk of being used for fraud, MasterCard International Inc.

– 2007- TJX Cos. (NYSE:TJX) revealed that information from least 45.7 million credit/ debit cards was stolen over an 18-month period

– 2008 - Security breach East Coast supermarket chain exposed more than 4 million card numbers led to 1,800 cases of fraud, Hannaford Bros. Grocery

Database of Credit Card Breaches http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm#CP

Cyberterrorism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-terrorism

• As 2000 approached, there was fear and uncertainty– Millennium bug promoted interest in potential

cyberterrorist attacks– Acted as a catalyst in sparking fears of a

possibly devastating cyber-attack– Real possibility existed for computer based

systems such as banks, water supplies and power to be completely disabled

Cyberterrorism

• Good overview of threat of cyber-terrorism http://www.crime-research.org/articles/

Cyber_Terrorism_new_kind_Terrorism/

• Examples of incidents found here

Cyberterrorism• On Oct. 21, 2002, a distributed denial of service (DDOS)

attack struck the 13 root servers that provide the primary road-map for all internet communications. Nine servers out of these thirteen were jammed. The problem was taken care of in a short period of time.

• At Worcester, Mass, in 1997, a hacker disabled the computer system of the airport control tower.

• In 2000, someone hacked into Maroochy Shire, Australia waste management control system and released millions of gallons of raw sewage on the town.

• In Russia In the year 2000, a hacker was able to control the computer system that govern the flow of natural gas through the pipelines.

Example of Cyberterrorism http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9721429-7.html

• In May 2007, Estonia subjected to mass cyber-attack in wake of removal of Russian World War II statue

• Attack was distributed denial of service attack in which selected sites were bombarded with traffic in order to force them offline … successfully

• Nearly all Estonian government ministry networks plus two major Estonian bank networks were knocked offline– Plus, political party website of Estonia's current Prime

Minister featured a counterfeit letter of apology for removing the memorial statue

Example of Cyberterrorism • At the peak of the crisis, bank cards and mobile-phone

networks were temporarily frozen, setting off alarm bells in the tech-dependent country

• Russia is suspected for the attacks and various groups have claimed responsibility ... no-one knows for sure!

• Is this Cyberterrorism?

Example of Cyberterrorism

• Stuxnet Worm - Current Example - 2010 http://www.theaeonsolution.com/security/?p=307

• Stuxnet is a Windows-specific computer worm first discovered in June 2010 by VirusBlokAda, a security firm based in Belarus

• It is the first discovered worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems

• Attacks Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used to control and monitor industrial processes

• It is also the first known worm to target critical industrial infrastructure

• According to news reports the infestation by this worm might have damaged Iran's nuclear facilities in Natanz

• It has infected computers in China, Iran, Indonesia, India, US and others ...

Example of Cyberterrorism

• Chinese Hackers Attack Energy Facilities - 2009 http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/15058/

• Hackers believed to be backed by the Chinese communist regime have continuously broken into computers critical to the functioning of the United States' electric grid network

• All major electricity companies were targeted in the attack, with several of their key systems compromised

• Attacks appeared pervasive across the U.S. and don't target a particular company or region

Risks from Attack

• As a private individual, who is likely to target you and what is their motivation?– Any Ideas?

Risks from Attackers

• Private Individuals• Credit cards, SSN’s, bank information, medical

records

• At risk from– Criminals – want to profit from getting and

selling your personal data– Phishing, Fake virus infections,

Social networking sites

Summary of Risks

• Small Business or Corporation– More at risk from deliberate targeting– Know something about company, at least its

assets and defenses– Use a variety of techniques, technical, social

engineering, and phishing to gain access– Want user or customer data, company secrets– Loss is potentially more severe

• Direct loss of assets and loss from law suites

Summary of Risks• Government, military site or critical

infrastructure sites– Huge attraction for outside hackers– Motivation includes financial but also just pride

especially if sophisticated security–Hacktivism – against policy– Could be nation states involved at this level– Meaning very skilled attackers trying to get

classified information– Or, trying to incapacitate Energy or

Communications sector … cyber terror– Loss can potentially be devastating

References

Captain Crunch Web Sitehttp://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/

Cult of the Dead Cowhttp://www.cultdeadcow.com/

2600 Magazinehttp://www.2600.com/

Hacker Hall of Famehttp://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/misc/

hack/hall.htm

Hacker Resources

• Wikipedia site for Hackers has– Books, Movies, other sites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computer_security)

• One other movie on Kevin Mitnick, Freedom Downtime by Emanual Goldstein

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6746139755329108302#

• Another movie, Hackers in Wonderlandhttp://video.google.com/videosearch?

q=hackers+in+wonderland&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

The End

• Next Time– New Assignment, Assignments page