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1995-03-03
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2KB
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34 lines
The Computer Emergency Response Team
"BB operator called the Computer Emegency Response Team... to report
discovering an unauthorized program that could surreptously record user's
secret passwords. CERT is the SWAT team of the electronic frontier;the call
sent these cybercops scrambling to their keyboards to try to figure out who
was behind the breakin-and whether it has spread. "When you see one,there
are probally a hundred. In this case,there are probally 10,000." Dain Gary
[CERT manager] CERT was created by the Defense Department five years ago after
the widespread Internet breakin, the team operates out of a granite building.
The New York bbs [which reported the break-in] is hooked up to the Internet,an
international web of computers that links 20 million users. If one system is
compromised,many are vulnerable. The December break-in turned out to be the
first of hundreds of similiar reports;earlier this month Gary's team concluded
there was an organized effort to infiltrate the Internet. CERT has no legal
power to arrest or prosecute;instead,the team of 15 programmers pokes through
violated systems using their only weapon:dozens of computers. Gary,52 CERT's
manager,is a decorated army-helicopter pilot and an expert in computer
security. Hackers are the "adversary",he says. "We try to help the victim" by
posting warnings of"holes"-vulnerabilities-and fixes on the net. Now there's
a growing geeling that more sinister forces may be loose,perhaps a kind of
net mafia intent on outright theft through use of credit-card numbers or other
data. Particularly complicated security breaches are farmed out around the
country to an unofficial brain trust of specialists in specific operating
sytems. The rest of the detective work is on line in Pittsburg. The team
must deal with increasingly sophisticated hackers and criticism from netters
who think that providing hole data is like giving cybercrooks keys to
computers. Unfortunately,finding holes is often easier than fixing them."
Newsweek v.123 page 73 Feb. 21,1994
bugsy [toe]