Hackers are wanted ... to teach security

A British hacker about to be extradited to the United States on charges of infiltrating the US military computer network said: executives have completely failed to detect unwanted attacks.

"Bad" achievement

Source: AFP

Gary McKinnon, speaking at the Infosec Europe 2006 conference, went out of his way to attack one of the key goals, leading to a global survey. " I was grabbed by using a graphical remote control tool and forgot my time zone. Someone was in the office and saw the mouse pointer moving on the screen, " Gary shrugged.

The case began to be investigated after it was discovered that the employee had left and the computer was on and running. " If you turn off your computer at night, you will minimize the risk of being caught ," McKinnon said.

On May 10, the London court will decide whether to meet the extradition requirements from the US. McKinnon, a hacker who is very interested in UFOs, may be sentenced for illegal intrusion into the Pentagon's computer network, army, Navy, US Air Force and NASA, and install management tools. Remote treatment and access many secret files in the database.

McKinnon (who is under bail) has attended the Conference with Robert Schifreen, another former British hacker. Schifreen and you are the first two hackers in the world to appear in court to hack computers, after entering BT Group's network in the mid-80s.

However, according to Schifreen, hacking is just one of the many risks that the computer security industry faces, besides spam, phishing and credit card fraud. " Despite the winged claims Microsoft advertises about Vista, cybercrime, hacking and phishing will continue. No single product can chase them away ."

Users are the weakest link

Users are the weakest link, Schifreen said. Everyone is vulnerable and has the possibility of social engineering traps (hackers' skills, guys) and there are no security products that can protect them from this risk.

USB is also becoming increasingly potential, as abominable employees can copy the database to a large-capacity USB device like an iPod hard drive and slip out.

However, network administrators can also implement a number of measures that reduce the risk. McKinnon, who regularly modifies log files inside computers that he broke into, said best, log files should be stored on the offsite server. In addition, the authority to access this file must be extremely strict.

However, log files only show what happens after the break-in, when it's too late to act, said Bob Ayers, former director of the US Department of Defense's Advanced Security program.

In addition to users, passwords are also a weak link. McKinnon can easily pass passwords that don't have a good protection mechanism because administrators have failed to make sense when configuring.

According to McKinnon, the first defensive barrier is the operating system. With Windows, this means you must activate antivirus software and firewalls, as well as turn off the Register server.

Ayers says security is more about people than technology. "Hire and retain the best system administrator you find in any way," he said.

Thien Y