Internet Attack Called Broad and Long Lasting by Investigators

Tue May 10 06:05:31 UTC 2005

This part:

    "The crucial element in the password thefts that provided access
     at Cisco and elsewhere was the intruder's use of a corrupted
     version of a standard software program, SSH. The program is used
     in many computer research centers for a variety of tasks, 
     ranging from administration of remote computers to data transfer
     over the Internet."

reminds me of the SourceForge attack a few years back
http://www.apache.de/info/20010519-hack.html

-Jim P.

On Mon, 2005-05-09 at 22:37 -0700, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach
> of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming
> instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of
> the Internet.
> 
> Now federal officials and computer security investigators have
> acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a
> more extensive operation - involving a single intruder or a small
> band, apparently based in Europe - in which thousands of computer
> systems were similarly penetrated.
> 
> 
> ....
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/technology/10cisco.html?hp&ex=1115784000&en=eeb27da2e75ec022&ei=5094&partner=homepage
> 
> 
> 		--Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
> 
> 