4 X Security Team

On 10 September 2008, a group identifying as the Greek Security Team managed to hack a computer system of the Large Hadron Collider charged to analyze the data from the Compact Muon Solenoid detector.In a web page of the CERN site, they described the technicians responsible for computer security as “schoolkids” and also expressed that they had no intention to disrupt the scientists’ work.

The hackers reportedly mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, which has raised eyebrows over the security of this historic experiment in the world, as it surpasses a vital milestone.

Scientists say that it was a competition between two hacker groups - known in hacking circles as 2600 and 1337, that led them to break into the experiment just before it was to begin.

2600, also known as the Greek Security Team broke into the experiment and left a message saying, “We are 2600.. don’t mess with us…” The scientists who were behind the mammoth experiment had received threatening emails prior to the start.

Scientists working at Cern, the organisation that runs the vast smasher, were worried about what the hackers could do because they were ‘one step away’ from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12,500 tons, measuring around 21 metres in length and 15 metres wide/high.

It appears that none of the experiments were adversely impacted by the security breach. But with “more than 110 different control systems” in place that run everything from building heating to radiation protection to the particle accelerators themselves, the idea of a security breach can seem frightening. Cern’s own Computing and Network Infrastructure for Controls group had previously produced a document that said, “recent events show that computer security issues are becoming a serious problem also at Cern.” The team refused to comment, however, on this week’s security breach.

Fortunately, only one file was damaged but one of the scientists firing off emails as the CMS team fought off the hackers said it was a “scary experience”. The hackers breached the CMSMON system, which monitors the CMS software system. CMS takes vast amounts of data during collisions.

[Source:rparmanik]

May 20th, 2008

The rise of pro-Kosovo web site defacement groups was marked in April, 2008, with a massive web site defacement spreading pro-Kosovo propaganda. The ongoing monitoring of pro-Kosovo hacking groups indicates an ongoing cyberwar between pro-Serbian supporting hacktivists successfully defacing Albanian sites, and building up capabilities by releasing a list of vulnerable Albanian sites (remote SQL injections for remote file inclusion, defacements or installing web shells/backdoors) to assist supports into importing the list within their do-it-yourself web site defacement tools.

According to Serbian hacking groups, independent Albanian web site defacers initially started attacking their sites later on joined by Kosovo Hacking group. In response, Serbian hacking groups have started distributing a segmented list of remotely exploitable Albanian sites and encouraging others to join the initiative and attempt to deface the sites. For the time being, Partia Demokracia Sociale (Social Democracy Party of Albania), AlbInvest (The First Investment Forum Albania-United Kingdom), and Tirana Bank are among the high-profile sites that have been defaced next to many others.

This incident greatly represents the capability building process and the degree of information sharing between Serbian groups empowering everyone with an already verified hit list of vulnerable Albanian sites.

Both groups are currently in a ceasefire phrase, trying to figure out who provoked who, by requesting group members to participate in the ongoing discussing. However, the possibility to engineer hacktivism tensions remains just as realistic, as engineering cyber warfare tensions is, by making it look like that the source of the attack is coming from a party what would be attacked based on the lack of evidence verification - in this minor cyber conflict the groups are in fact talking with each other. Moreover, in the long-term, web site defacement groups realizing the market value of their know-how, will inevitably start contributing with spammers, phishers and malware authors in a much broader sense than the current degree of collaboration - selling acccess to compromised web servers only.

[Source: Zdnet]