HPAVC/HPAVC CD-ROM.iso/CODBRK3.ZIP/cb0502.txt

Text File | 1998-03-25 | 10KB | 208 lines

                         In the News

                      Brought to you by
                         Horny Toad


     I decided to continue the "In the News" section of the
Codebreakers zine, but with a slight twist.  I am going to
try and include numerous bits of interesting virus and hacking
news from around the world to keep you informed of the current
virus and AV situation.



1. Masterspy Hacker?

A masterspy believed by the Pentagon to be the number one threat
to US security and deadlier than the KGB turned out to be a
British schoolboy hacker working out of his bedroom.
US military chiefs feared that an East European spy ring had
gained access to their innermost intelligence secrets and hacked
into American Air Defense systems. In actuality, this "spy ring"
was none other than 16 year old Londoner
Richard Pryce. Pryce, aka "The Datastream Cowboy" was fined $1915
by a London Court for committing "War Games" style crimes.
Pryce downloaded dozens of secret files, including details of the
research and developement of ballistic missiles.  He successfully
broke into US "secure" systems 200 times.  Using a $1200 computer,
he broke into computers at US Air Force Bases and even Lockheed
systems.
"Those places were a lot easier to get into than university
computers in England", Pryce told reporters. "It was more of a
challenge really, going somewhere I wasn't meant to.  If you set
out to go somewhere and you get there, other hackers would be
impressed."
Pryce got a "D" on his computer course exam.


2. Swedish Hackers Caught

Two young Swedish hackers who turned a Swedish county's home page
into an advertisement for pornography and cannabis and broke into
the US space agency's computer system have been found.  After a
year-long hunt, police in Umea in northern Sweden finally traced
the two youths, aged 18 and 15, and seized their computers, the
newspaper Vasterbottens Folkblad said today.  No charges will be
filed due to the fact that no economic crime was committed.


3. Elton John Virus

There is a virus that is spreading its way across Spain.  The
virus prints the first two verses of Elton John's tribute song to
Princess Diana, Candle in the Wind '97.  A Spanish AV dude is
quoted as saying that this is one of the worlds few nice viruses
because it doesn't break or destroy anything.


4. A German Bank is after you

The Bayerische Vereinsbank in Germany has offered a 10000 mark
reward to catch a hacker who was threatening to divulge it's
clients bank codes.  The hacker has demanded that the bank pay him
500000 marks or he will disclose confidential data on the banks
clients. Bild daily published a page-one photo of the hacker,
showing a man believed to be between 25 and 35, wearing round
glasses.
Viel Gluck!


5. Words from Sarah Gordon

Most people think that the typical virus writer is an evil,
depraved technopathic genius gone mad, a sociopath. But the ones
that Sarah has come across have seemed like a nice, normal lot.
(She obviously talked to the Codebreakers!) Virus writing may not
be illegal, but it is certainly anti-social. Sarah wanted to find
out what ethics motivates people to write viruses, what is the
attraction?
What she found was that, apart from writing viruses, there was
nothing very unethical about virus writers.  In one study she
interviewed a sample of 60 virus writers and compared them with a
model of ethical development formulated by the psychologist
Lawrence Kohlberg.  They were mostly "within the ethical norms for
their ages."  There was no such thing, she also discovered, as a
typical virus writer, although they did fall into categories - the
adolescent, the student and the professional adult.  They were
almost exclusively male.

They tended to be young, from middle-class homes and with a keen
sense of right and wrong.  They were respectful of authority - not
the angry, antisocial teenagers you might expect.
"Justifications vary from 'we can do this because we can' to 'we
do this because someone said we were not capable of doing it',"
says Gordon.  Most said it was something they just did and that
they had never considered why.

"The impact of there actions is often seen, at least by them, as
impacting machines, not other human beings."  This shouldn't come
as a surprise, she says.  The impersonal, dehumanised world of
"electronic communities" is bound to make some people behave
differently.  Anonymity, it has been shown, often prompts people
to behave in ways they wouldn't in the "physical world."

Adult Virus writers tend to be more immature for their "ethical
development" age groups, and more likely to have chips on their
shoulders.  They spoke of hatred of hypocrisy and politicians, and
saw themselves as fighting an "enemy", mostly defined as
"Society."  Some saw virus writing as a right - a form of free
speech.

Most of them said that they were battling against the "AV people"
- anti-virus experts, like Gordon.  Fame was a common motive -
getting a virus discussed in the news groups or written about in
the press was a major coup.  The highest accolade was for a virus
to become so widespread that a scanning product to detect it was
put on the market.

One of Gordon's aims in doing this research, which she continues
to update, is to demystify people's perceptions about virus
writing. "The 'art' of writing viruses is vastly overrated by the
virus writers," she says. "It is pretty simple to write a virus,
and real talent could be better shown by making useful software."
There are only 300 viruses currently circulating, although over
17000 have been identified in the past.

Gordon has interviewed some of the more sophisticated virus
writers - underworld celebrities spoken of in hushed, admiring
tones by their younger counterparts.  When she published an
interview with one, an aggressive Bulgarian known as "Dark
Avenger", she was dubbed the Clarice Starling of the virus world.
He was Hannibal Lecter, and the interview does indeed read like
something from Silence of the Lambs: after she made her first
attempt to contact him, via a bulletin board, his spooky response
was to dedicate his latest virus to her.  "Why didn't you contact me
directly?" he asks in the interview. "I was afraid of you," she
replies. "You should see a doctor," he says. "Normal women don't
spend their time talking about computer viruses."


6. New Virus Strain Reeking Havoc

Reports are emerging all over Europe about the spreading of a new
strain of the Elvira virus. The Elvira virus was originally written
by Spanska. In his original version, there were no destructive routines.
Unfortunately, someone must have altered his original code and
added a routine to erase the hard drive.  Both versions of the
Elvira virus are encrypted and polymorphic.  They also both display
a version of the text below.

Elvira!
Black and White Girl
From Paris.
You make me feel alive.

If infected with the new strain of the Elvira virus, once the message
is displayed, the virus will then begin erasing you hard drive.
Unfortunately, when you publish source code, it can be abused by
simply changing the payload routines.  The Elvira virus hasn't made
it to the wild list, but it is well on its way.  This new strain of
the Elvira virus was found by Panda Software.  A spokesman from Norton
also confirms that they have many different strains of the Elvira virus.



7. Peace Virus

Well, all over France the "Peace" virus is making itself known.
This virus infects Microsoft Excel documents by inserting itself
into a formula on an Excel spreadsheet.  It sounds like a fun
virus, its payload isn't really destructive, rather, annoying to
the Excel user.  The virus hides the toolbar, inserts tabs in the
document, and then attempts to save spreadsheets with the name "En
fin la paix" - Peace at last. I guess the big fuss is that if you
have multiple spreadsheets open at the same time, each will try to
save as the same name.  What a bummer.
Whoever the author is, send me the code and virus description and
you'll have an article in the Codebreakers Zine!


8. Russian Hacker Caught

The first criminal case against a hacker in Russia took place over
a month ago.  The dude was a commercial college student.  He got
probation for 3 years and had to pay 2800 dollars in fines.  That
doesn't seem like much, but I guess in Russia, its quite a bit
these days.  Apparently the hacker copied a load of confidential
commercial information, but the authorities did not have any proof
that he had sold anything, hence the reduced sentence.


9. Citibank hacked

I'm sure that you have all heard about Vladimir Leonidovich Levin.
He is the dude that hacked Citibank and transferred over 3.7
million dollars to unnamed accounts.  This 30 year old hacker from
St Petersburg is facing 5 years in jail and fines of at least
250,000 dollars.  Levin was able to hack into Citibank and
manipulate a special bank program to transfer the cash.  I saw an
interview with Levin on TV and this guy is great.  The authorities
have pinned Levin to Russian mafia ties. Actually, what in Russia
is not affected by the mafia?  Anyway, Levin used some simple
techniques that he found on a hacking site to gain access to the
Citibank "secure" server.  Damn, I was thinking Mitnick the whole
time I listened to this guys interview.
Levin, nu, davayte delat interview somnoi!