Looks like it may be time to check TFPs security... - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

SecretMethod70 · 07-02-2003, 03:06 PM

According to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/02/financial1239EDT0109.DTL&type=tech">this article</a> July 6 should prove to be a very interesting day on the internet!

Quote:

Government, industry warn of mass hacker attacks on July 6
TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
©2003 Associated Press

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl....DTL&type=tech

(07-02) 11:05 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

The government and private technology experts warned Wednesday that hackers plan to attack thousands of Web sites Sunday in a loosely coordinated "contest" that could disrupt Internet traffic.

Organizers established a Web site, defacers-challenge.com, listing in broken English the rules for hackers who might participate. The Web site appeared to operate out of California and cautioned to "deface its crime" -- an apparent acknowledgment that vandalizing Internet pages is illegal.

The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it was aware of the hackers' plans but did not expect to issue any formal public warnings. The Chief Information Officers Council, part of the Office of Management and Budget, cautioned U.S. agencies and instructed experts to tighten security at federal Web sites.

"Frankly, hacker challenges occur frequently, and we don't think they all rise to the level of a warning," Homeland Security spokesman David Wray said.

Home Internet users, who typically do not operate Web sites, probably would not be affected directly, said Oliver Friedrichs, the senior manager for security response at Symantec Corp.

An early warning network for the technology industry, operating with Homeland Security, notified companies that it received "credible information" about the planned attacks and already has detected surveillance probes by hackers looking for weaknesses in corporate and government networks.

"We emphasize that all Web site administrators should ensure that their sites are not vulnerable," wrote Peter Allor of Internet Security Systems Inc., the Atlanta-based company that runs the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

Friedrichs, though, said Symantec's global monitoring network wasn't detecting unusual probes.

"We really haven't seen any of that activity," he said. "We're certainly going to keep watching and looking."

Separately, the New York Office of Cyber-Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination warned Internet providers and other organizations that the goal of the hackers was to vandalize 6,000 Web sites in six hours.

New York officials urged companies to change default computer passwords, begin monitoring Web site activities more aggressively, remove unnecessary functions from server computers and apply the latest software repairs from vendors such as Microsoft Corp.

Chris Rouland, director of the X-force security team at ISS, said researchers monitoring underground chat rooms and other Internet activity detected a drop in the numbers of vandalized Web sites recently and an increase in the types of surveillance scans that typically precede computer break-ins.

"It's kind of a sand-bagging period," said Rouland, who predicted that hackers were quietly breaking into computers and waiting to vandalize them on Sunday.

The purported "prize" for participating hackers was 500-megabytes of online storage space, which made little sense to computer experts. They said hackers capable of breaking into thousands of computers could easily steal that amount of storage on corporate networks.
On the Net:

Hacker contest: www.defacers-challenge.com

©2003 Associated Press

mrquackers · 07-02-2003, 04:06 PM

Swell... because I don't have enough fun finding my email through the acres of spam, now I'm gonna have a hard time hitting my favorite web sites.

Ah, technology... how you love to play with our minds.

juanvaldes · 07-02-2003, 05:27 PM

fun for my birthday YAY!!

Xirax · 07-02-2003, 07:38 PM

I work in a web hosting support department...Mondays are typically bad days for us. This doesn't bode well. We even got a general warning in the company email.

I hope those linux servers we're running are patched...

macmanmike6100 · 07-03-2003, 02:26 AM

The scale sounds pretty dramatic, so we'll see what happens. But to be honest, I don't think that it'll be a huge problem. Plus, if a really popular website is defaced, it shouldn't have been vulnerable in the first place (even though I'm not trying to *blame* the website).

Imagine, though, watching the vandalism unfold from Akamai headquarters...

whale · 07-03-2003, 03:57 AM

*splutter* but ... but ...

why would the fellas wanna target tfp anyway?

suviko · 07-03-2003, 07:14 AM

http://www.zone-h.org/en/news/read/id=2989/

US warns of hacker attacks

Ted Bridis
07/03/2003

Stop Cyberterrorism THE US government and private technology experts have warned that hackers plan to attack thousands of websites on Sunday in a loosely co-ordinated "contest" that could disrupt Internet traffic. Organisers established a website, defacers-challenge.com, which was shut down early Wednesday evening. Before it was removed, the site listed in broken English the rules for hackers who might participate. It cautioned that "deface its crime" – an apparent acknowledgment that vandalising internet pages is illegal.
The US Department of Homeland Security said that it was aware of the hackers' plans but did not expect to issue any formal public warnings. The Chief Information Officers Council, part of the Office of Management and Budget, cautioned US agencies and instructed experts to tighten security at federal websites.

"Frankly, hacker challenges occur frequently, and we don't think they all rise to the level of a warning," Homeland Security spokesman David Wray said.

Affinity Internet Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which through a subsidiary operated the computer servers where the hacker website was located, shut down the site for violating a service agreement, Affinity spokeswoman Laura Weir said. The company declined to identify the Affinity customer who set up the Internet site, citing privacy restrictions. Records show the Web address was registered June 21.

---------------------------------

One source says the winner has to corrupt 6k sits in smallest amount of time and they estimate 20k sites will be affected and yet the agency thinks it's not a major threat. Media might be hyping about stuff cos hackers sound mediasexy topic to hysterize about. What do you think, anybody got better insight to these things?

human · 07-03-2003, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by whale
*splutter* but ... but ...

why would the fellas wanna target tfp anyway?

Damned if I know but...

The guys/girls out there doing this are going for sheer body count (server count?) Which means that rather than targetting the biggest, most secure sites, something like yahoo for example, they will go for sites that have a fair number of regular users and might not have the biggest budget to stay on top of security stuff. Well known exploits will be attacked first.

Means that the sites that are going to be hurt the most are the cliched mom and pop e business sites and well travelled community sites that are run by people in their spare time and might not have half a dozen full time security guys. It would be funny to see MS defaced or the white house page with some funny graffiti all over it, but that's not going to happen. Instead, it'll be the guy up the street who delivers fresh baked goods out of his website to your door. Someone who does not have the technical know how to secure a server and figure out what he did wrong in setting it up. More importantly, it'll be people who might not have ghosted servers and full database backups done hourly.

Sorry about the rant, it's probably pretty obvious I hold skript k1dd13s and 1337 h@x0rs in low regard...

All that scaremongering aside though, the target is 6k sites. The number of websites out there is orders of magnitue larger. Chances of being singled out are pretty slim. From what I've seen thus far, the tfp code is pretty damned solid, which implies that the server is likely hardened as well. There are easier targets out there.

SecretMethod70 · 07-03-2003, 09:11 AM

heh, sorry guys, I didn't mean to imply I actually thought TFP was in danger - it was a joke

Sty does a great job on the server so I feel pretty secure about it.

07-02-2003, 04:06 PM	#2 (permalink)
mrquackers Exhausted Location: Northeastern US - please send help!	Swell... because I don't have enough fun finding my email through the acres of spam, now I'm gonna have a hard time hitting my favorite web sites. Ah, technology... how you love to play with our minds. __________________ "If you're walking on thin ice, you may as well go ahead and dance."

07-02-2003, 07:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
Xirax Psycho Location: Toronto	I work in a web hosting support department...Mondays are typically bad days for us. This doesn't bode well. We even got a general warning in the company email. I hope those linux servers we're running are patched... __________________ perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'

07-03-2003, 07:14 AM	#7 (permalink)
suviko Banned	Hacker competition might be corrupting sites on 6th this month http://www.zone-h.org/en/news/read/id=2989/ US warns of hacker attacks Ted Bridis 07/03/2003 Stop Cyberterrorism THE US government and private technology experts have warned that hackers plan to attack thousands of websites on Sunday in a loosely co-ordinated "contest" that could disrupt Internet traffic. Organisers established a website, defacers-challenge.com, which was shut down early Wednesday evening. Before it was removed, the site listed in broken English the rules for hackers who might participate. It cautioned that "deface its crime" – an apparent acknowledgment that vandalising internet pages is illegal. The US Department of Homeland Security said that it was aware of the hackers' plans but did not expect to issue any formal public warnings. The Chief Information Officers Council, part of the Office of Management and Budget, cautioned US agencies and instructed experts to tighten security at federal websites. "Frankly, hacker challenges occur frequently, and we don't think they all rise to the level of a warning," Homeland Security spokesman David Wray said. Affinity Internet Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which through a subsidiary operated the computer servers where the hacker website was located, shut down the site for violating a service agreement, Affinity spokeswoman Laura Weir said. The company declined to identify the Affinity customer who set up the Internet site, citing privacy restrictions. Records show the Web address was registered June 21. --------------------------------- One source says the winner has to corrupt 6k sits in smallest amount of time and they estimate 20k sites will be affected and yet the agency thinks it's not a major threat. Media might be hyping about stuff cos hackers sound mediasexy topic to hysterize about. What do you think, anybody got better insight to these things?

07-03-2003, 09:11 AM	#9 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	heh, sorry guys, I didn't mean to imply I actually thought TFP was in danger - it was a joke Sty does a great job on the server so I feel pretty secure about it. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

07-02-2003, 05:27 PM	#3 (permalink)
juanvaldes Banned Location: shittown, CA	fun for my birthday YAY!!

07-03-2003, 02:26 AM	#5 (permalink)
macmanmike6100 High Honorary Junkie Location: Tri-state.	The scale sounds pretty dramatic, so we'll see what happens. But to be honest, I don't think that it'll be a huge problem. Plus, if a really popular website is defaced, it shouldn't have been vulnerable in the first place (even though I'm not trying to blame the website). Imagine, though, watching the vandalism unfold from Akamai headquarters...

07-03-2003, 03:57 AM	#6 (permalink)
whale Tilted	splutter but ... but ... why would the fellas wanna target tfp anyway?