[iwar] More news

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-09-01 07:32:12


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Subject: [iwar] More news
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Homeland Security.org, 8/31/2001

Keith A.  Rhodes of the General Accounting Office delivered testimony on
the Code Red Virus to the House Committee on Government Reform this
Wednesday.  Among his conclusions were the following:

-An estimated 975,000 servers have been infected to date by the Code Red
Virus. 

-Economic losses to date for the Code Red Virus are estimated at
approximately $2.4 billion. 

-This still falls short of the damage inflicted by the ILOVEYOU virus,
estimated at $8 billion. 

-Finally, Mr.  Rhodes indicates ominously that "100 countries already
have or are developing computer attack capabilities. 

(Statistics taken from report GAO-01-1073T)
[http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d011073t.pdf]

========================================================================
Code Red: Born In The USA? 
By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes, 8/31/2001
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/169636.html

While China may have been hit early and hard with the Code Red worm,
security experts today said there is no clear evidence that the worm
began there, or that its author is Chinese. 

In a presentation before a House subcommittee Wednesday, Keith Rhodes,
chief technologist for the Center for Technology and Engineering at the
Government Accounting Office (GAO), said that Code Red I is "believed to
have started at a university in Guangdong, China."

Rhodes, whose testimony was published at the GAO Web site, was not
immediately available for comment. 

But according to intrusion logs compiled by Dshield.org, Code Red hit
the United States and other countries before it made its way to a server
installed at Foshan University in Guangdong. 

Dshield's records show that more than a dozen machines in California,
Texas, Germany, Mexico, and Brazil were infected with Code Red I as
early as July 12, five days before the worm was first identified by Eeye
Digital Security. 

A machine located at an Internet address registered to Foshan University
first began probing port 80 on other servers July 13, according to
Dshield's data. 

The server, located at Internet protocol address 202.192.168.145,
apparently stopped trying to infect other systems two days later. 
Because the first version of Code Red is memory-resident, it can be
killed with a system re-boot. 

A scan using the Code Red Scanner from Eeye today shows the Foshan
system is now patched and not vulnerable to attacks such as Code Red
that exploit the IDA bug in IIS. 

Attempts by Newsbytes to contact the system operator were unsuccessful. 
Code Red I replaced the home page on infected IIS servers with one which
read, "Hacked by Chinese.  Welcome to http://www.worm.com."; The worm
attempted to propagate by frenetically scanning port 80 on remote
Internet servers, looking for other unpatched IIS systems.  According to
Johannes Ullrich, operator of the Dshield.org service, tracking down
"patient zero" or the first machine infected with Code Red I is
difficult, because the worm does not leave any files behind on infected
systems. 

"I guess it's fashionable to blame China for everything cyber-warish
these days," said Ullrich.  He added that Code Red I could just have
easily been launched by someone attending DefCon, the annual hacker
convention that convened in Las Vegas on July 13. 

Rhodes' testimony is at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d011073t.pdf . 
Dshield is at http://www.dshield.org . 

Foshan University is at http://www.fosu.edu.cn/ehtml/eindex.html . 

========================================================================
Russia tells computer experts to stay home

By Reuters 
August 31, 2001, 11:25 a.m. PT

MOSCOW--Russia warned its computer experts Friday of the dangers of
visiting the United States after a Russian software designer was
arrested there for violating a controversial new law. 

Last July, Dmitry Sklyarov became the first person to be arrested on
charges of selling technology designed to circumvent a 1998 U.S. 
copyright protection law.  Formally arraigned Thursday, he faces up to
25 years in jail if convicted. 

"We want to point out to all Russian specialists cooperating with U.S. 
firms in computer programming and software design that, whatever the
outcome of Sklyarov's case, they may fall under the jurisdiction of the
1998 Act on the territory of the United States," the Foreign Ministry
said in a statement. 

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which upholds copyright protection
in computer and electronic programs, has sparked controversy among legal
experts, although many U.S.  businesses favor it. 

Sklyarov, 26, spent 21 days in prison before being freed on bail amid
noisy protests by advocates of free speech and other supporters.  He
pleaded not guilty. 

The Russian programmer has written a program enabling people using Adobe
Systems' eBook software to copy and print digital books or transfer them
to other computers. 

He was arrested while visiting a hackers' convention in the United
States. 

========================================================================
By Ned Stafford, Newsbytes
MUNICH, GERMANY,
31 Aug 2001, 11:25 AM CST

An agreement between the German federal and state governments concerning
the reform of electronic media regulatory supervision could result in
tougher controls on Internet content. 

German federal and state governments agreed in principle on a reform
plan under which the states would hand over technical and regulatory
authority - known in Germany as "data protection authority" - for all
electronic media to the federal government. 

Currently, the federal government oversees technical and regulatory
authority of telecommunications, while the states are responsible for
electronic media, such as television and radio broadcasting and the
Internet.  In return for giving up regulatory control of electronic
media, German states - which enjoy a high level of autonomy from the
federal government - would gain the right to create and oversee a
central authority to supervise programming and content. 

A top official in the powerful - and conservative - state of Bavaria has
voiced strong approval of the proposed plan. 

Erwin Huber, head of Bavaria's Office of the Chancellery, said in a
written statement that a central supervisory authority for electronic
media would be able to more effectively protect Germany's youth from
pornographic and violent content on the Web and TV. 

Currently, authority is divided between various agencies at the federal
and state levels, which has often led to conflicting rulings and made it
difficult to control dissemination of pornographic and violent content,
he said. 

In an interview with the German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sontag, Huber
was more blunt, putting Internet service providers and broadcasters on
notice that he will lobby for creation of an aggressive supervisory
authority that will exercise its powers. 

He told the newspaper that whoever transmits porn or violence via TV or
the Internet will in the future be forced to pay "huge fines." And he
added: "And repeat offenders will lose their broadcast licenses. 
Penalties must be credible and painful."

Bernhard Schwab, a spokesman for Huber, told Newsbytes that the plan
would not take effect until Germany's 15 states come to agreement.  The
goal is to reach agreement by autumn of 2002. 

Obviously, 15 states agreeing would likely require much discussion and
compromise. 

Huber, in his statement, said: "I hope that the other states pull
together and that we can quickly accomplish this ambitious reform
project."


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