[iwar] Historical posting
From: Fred Cohen
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Mon, Jan 1, 1999
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Date: Mon, Jan 1, 1999
From: Fred Cohen
Reply-To: iwar@egroups.com
Subject: [iwar] Historical posting
Japan Hacks Continue Unabated
Following a recent spate of attacks on its Web sites, the Japanese
government's statement on Jan. 26 that it is to wage war on hackers,
far from deterring them, seems to have strengthened their resolve.
On Jan. 29, the site of Japan's ministry of posts and telecommunications,
Okinawa (http://www.okinawa.mpt.go.jp ) was defaced with a photograph of
an atrocity committed during the Rape of Nanjing and related derogatory
messages in Chinese. The hacker, signing himself "Miracle," had also
claimed responsibility for a Jan. 26 attack on a government statistics
bureau (http://www.stat.go.jp ). On Jan. 30 the Japanese Institute for
Dissemination and Research of Government Data site (http://www.gioss.or.jp )
was modified by an anonymous hacker to display a defaced Japanese flag
with an accompanying anti-Japanese message written in Chinese. The same
day, two other Japanese non-governmental organizations were also attacked:
Meikai University (http://www.meikai.ac.jp ) and the Tokyo Metropolitan
Institute of Gerontology (http://www.tmig.or.jp ) both had their sites
defaced by a hacker identifying himself as "fzk in guangdong" with the
same photograph and text as the site of the Okinawa postal ministry.
On Jan. 31, in an apparently unrelated incident, a hacker signing off as
"wds" left a brief message greeting his friends and demanding that Russia
halt a war (presumably in Chechnya) on the site of the Japanese Science
and Technology Translation Network (http://www-jmt.jst.go.jp ).
http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/143097.html
Hackers Slam Japanese Government Web Sites
For eight days in a row, a frenzy of computer hacking attacks have
swept through Japanese government Web sites, adding derogatory
comments to home pages, wiping out data and alerting officials to
the government's lax computer security. "Welcome, Japan, to the
world of cyberwar," said the national newspaper Mainichi Shimbun.
Starting with the Science and Technology Agency, the hackers quickly
rolled through other government sites. In most cases, messages were
added in Chinese or English condemning Japan for the 1937 Nanjing
Massacre. The day before the attacks began, a controversial forum
was held in Osaka denying that Japanese soldiers killed hundreds of
thousands of civilians after the city of Nanjing fell. The Chinese
government lodged a strong protest over the meeting. One of the
altered web sites said the Japanese were a people with no courage to
face the truth of history and that the country was the "disgrace of Asia."
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59677-2000Feb1.html
HSBC in major Hacker alert
At the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland,
super-bank HSBC chairman John Bond revealed the full extent of what
many industry watchers believe to be one of the most sophisticated
and determined attempted hacks to date. Last year apparently, the
company had to call all hands on deck as it fought to stave off a
hacker assault that lasted almost two days. HSBC, which is
headquartered in London and is regarded as one of the worlds leading
banking and financial services organisations, had no idea who the
attacker was but knew that it had to protect its customers from the
increasingly keen terrorist. The attacker, which many believe could
belong to a dedicated team of world-wide financial hackers, apparently
tried some 150 million passwords in the two day break-in attempt, but
HSBC's systems were secure enough to prevent the hacker gaining access
to what is regarded as the company's critical systems - although quite
whether or they got into any less critical systems is unknown.
http://www.it-analysis.com/00-02-01-1.html
[FC - seems more like a single PC user to me...]
Shanghai orders illegal Internet cafes closed
Shanghai has ordered 127 Internet cafes to close and seized computers,
a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, the latest attempt to rein-in
an online industry that is mushrooming out of control. The Shanghai
News said the Internet cafes had failed to obtain licenses. `Unlicensed
Internet cafes avoid paying taxes and disseminate pornographic CDs which
corrupt the minds of young people,'' the newspaper quoted an official
from the city government's information department as saying.
http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/156761l.htm
Hackers Disrupt Tonga
Disruption to Internet access and e-mail that lasted several days in the
Pacific nation of Tonga was blamed on a security breach at the nation's
leading Internet service provider (ISP), Kalianet. According to a report
by Radio Australia, a hacker or hackers managed to break into Kalianet's
computer systems precipitating the disruption last week. The ISP asked
customers to protect their passwords and change them regularly.
http://www.currents.net/newstoday/00/02/01/news5.html
Cybersnoops: Hackers for hire
Former spies and cops sell surveillance skills on the open market.
Hundreds of overseas agents who were dumped by the CIA in the budget
cuts of the mid-'90s are spying for profit on the Internet. So you
think your computer communications are safe and secure? Hah! You poor,
deluded, vulnerable fool. Experts in the security business confide
that most computer networks are wide open to attack by dedicated
hackers. Indeed, they describe some real-world electronic assaults
that would make your bytes turn into bits.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/364412.asp
FC