|  | <<  
             ^ 
              >> 
            
              | Date: 1998-06-09 
 
 Nuclear Hacks: Tuerkische Atombehoerden angegriffen-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-
 
 q/depesche 98.6.9.1
 updating 98.6.7.2
 
 Nuclear Hacks: Türkische Atombehörden angegriffen
 
 Offenbar wurde das Istanbuler Cekmece Nuclear Research and Training Center erfolgreich aufgemacht.
 Täter: Wieder die MilWOrm group, angeblich Teenies aus den USA, Israel, Neuseeland & UK.
 
 
 relayed by newsbytes.
 
 WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1998 JUN 8 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha,
 Newsbytes. The MilW0rm group, which last Wednesday apparently was able
 to gain access into India's Bhabha Atomic Research Center, appears to
 be continuing its attacks on nuclear research centers worldwide. This
 time, the group of teen-age hackers - more accurately known as
 "crackers" - allegedly gained access to servers in a Turkish nuclear
 research facility.
 
 According to John Vranesevich, founder of antionline.org, the teen-age
 intruders gained access to the Cekmece Nuclear Research and Training
 Center in Istanbul and retrieved hundreds of pages of memos and e-mail
 from scientists, including conversations between Turkish nuclear
 scientists and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
 
 The MilW0rm group, Vranesevich said, also apparently had assistance in
 accessing the Turkish facility from a second "hackgroup," which also
 has turned over "proof" that they also gained access to servers in
 Iran, Israel and Latvia.
 
 But like the information retrieved from BARC, none of the information
 stolen from the Turkish research center appears to be directly related
 to nuclear weapons research. There do appear, however, to be several
 encrypted documents downloaded from the Turkish facility, Vranesevich
 said.
 
 Since Newsbytes first broke the story on MilW0rm's penetration into the
 Indian nuclear research center last Wednesday afternoon, the group,
 which apparent consists of at least a half dozen teenagers from the
 US, the UK, Israel and New Zealand, also has claimed they are
 attempting to infiltrate nuclear research sites in Pakistan as well.
 
 But according to one Pakistani source, it would be difficult for any
 group to infiltrate the Pakistani centers.
 
 "Neither Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, nor Kahuta Research
 Laboratories (Uranium enrichment plant site and research center) have
 loopholes for external Internet hackers to log in," Rashida Shaikh told
 Newsbytes. "Computer systems installed over there for nuclear
 computation and information systems purpose are disconnected from
 Internet service. Even different remote computer centers are not on
 WAN (wide area network), except few. So hackers who log in planning
 to log in using Internet connectivity are just wasting their time."
 
 One US computer security expert, however, told Newsbytes that the
 telling comment in Shaikh's statement is "except few."
 
 "It only takes one connection," the security expert told Newsbytes.
 
 Meanwhile, a US Army spokesperson confirmed over the weekend that
 unauthorized sources did break into a US Army computer system last
 week, but declined to speculate whether that was the route MilW0rm took
 to gain access to the Indian facility.
 
 The incident, however, is being investigate by both the US Army and the
 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Army spokesperson Gerry Gilmore
 said.
 
 The Indian government vehemently denied on Friday that the breach
 resulted in the loss of sensitive information, saying the hackers only
 accessed e-mail messages of scientists and the Web site.
 
 "Recent access by hackers has been only to e-mail messages of
 scientists and BARC home page information, and the connections for
 these are isolated from all other computers used at BARC and obviously
 do not contain any sensitive information," said S. Narendra, principal
 spokesman for the government of India, reading a release from BARC
 officials.
 
 According to the MilW0rm group, they gained access to BARC by first
 going through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet
 Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) site at tartarus.jpl.nasa.gov. From there,
 MilW0rm reportedly accessed a US Navy site, yokipc.navy.mil, and then
 the US Dental Command Center at dencom.army.mil. MilW0rm then
 reportedly used the Dental Command Center site as a jump point to India.
 
 Although Gilmore confirmed the Dental Command site was accessed, other
 sources told Newsbytes that the JPL site could find no evidence of
 unauthorized access.
 
 Gilmore also said the dencom site was immediately shut down, and has
 since been secured.
 
 India, meanwhile, has played down the unauthorized access into its
 atomic research center.
 
 As reported by Newsbytes, the chairman of the India Atomic Energy
 Commission, R Chidambaram, denied that MilW0rm gained access to
 sensitive information of any kind from the classified servers.
 Chidambaram said they could access only the BARC home page, which was
 in public domain, and some of BARC's e-mail messages.
 
 A BARC senior scientist confirmed that no critical data was wiped out
 from the BARC computer server, simply because the center physically
 isolates sensitive data from the Web and e-mail servers which are prone
 to such attacks.
 
 -.-.- --.-  -.-.- --.-  -.-.- --.-
 TIP
 Download free PGP 5.5.3i (Win95/NT & Mac) from Arge Daten
 http://keyserver.ad.or.at/pgp/download/
 
 -.-.- --.-  -.-.- --.-  -.-.- --.-
 - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-
 edited by
 published on: 1998-06-09
 comments to office@quintessenz.at
 subscribe Newsletter
 - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-
 <<  
                   ^ 
                    >>
 |  |  |  |