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Mitnick Testifies on Telco's Security
Woefdram writes "Our favourite computer criminal (?) Kevin Mitnick testified in a case against Telco Sprint that their security was like Swiss cheese: full of holes. The story on SecurityFocus quotes Mitnick, saying, 'I had access to most, if not all, of the switches in Las Vegas,' and tells how he came up with a list of 100 challenge-response codes." We've written about this case before.
...is this testimony going to come back for possible charges in the future? In other words, could Sprint now decide to go after him?
No. He's already been tried for this specific crime - it would be double jeopardy. (Yes, like the movie with Ashley Judd, only with less sex appeal, since there's no women's prison involved.) You can't be tried for the same crime twice. If you commit two murders you can be tried twice, but they can't try you twice for the same murder.
What's your damage, Heather?
This does not surprise me at all. I work for a large telecommunications company. 4 years ago our group took over responsibility for 40 switches, 32 of which were DMS-100s. The forst thing we had to do was change the admin passwords- some were still the default password installed by Nortel when the switch was first built, others were as simple as admin:admin. All someone would have needed to do is call a NOC and pose as a Nortel engineer to get the dial up numbers and voila! Tens of thousands of customers without service and a very long report to the FCC.
What is most vital is that in this case, unlike other previous Mitnick cases, the telco is arguing that Mitnick didn't break in while Mitnick is insisting that he did. Mitnick is offering proof in the form of documents and passwords and the Sprint of Nevada lawyer is saying that the information Mitnick is bogus or publicly available. This is such an exact turnaround from the last legal tangle that Mitnick was in that I gotta wonder if it's even the same universe.
Does this have any relevance to legal cases outside the Munoz "Vegas escort" case? I don't know, but I could see it happening: Hollywood lawyers calling on DeCSS authors and users, arguing that the software they have doesn't actually promote piracy. Could be interesting!
Under the circumstances, I can't say I blame him. The man isn't allowed to touch a computer. Nowadays that means he can't even work at McDonalds.
Cashing in on his celebrity is the only carreer option the guy has.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
To be REALLY fair to nortel, while the web was young seven years ago, (the net was old, even then) that has absolutely nothing to do with this crack job.
The DMS-100s were broken the good old fashioned way -- use a war dialer to find the dialup number, then call the switch directly. Once connected, try the obvious passwords first (either admin/admin or admin/NORTEL_DEFAULT_PASSWORD, which Mitnick had learned from Nortel docs)
Deander2 got it right -- Nortel designed an absurdly complex product, and was unmotivated to clean house because they were able to rake in the consulting bucks. WHEN (not if) this comes back to bite a client in the butt (like it did with Sprint) Nortel takes no heat for it, and in fact most likely gets even MORE consulting dollars for a hasty clean-up effort.
You gotta admit though, he's got the earmarks to be one of those great mythological figures one day.
Can you prove it?
Wait here for a few minutes..
**a few minutes later**
Here are the passwords for your central switches, I had them on file in one of my drop points down the street. Lucky me that it was still there.
**laywer fumbles and swears**
Remember, Hackers are like boyscouts, they're always prepared.. they just prepare for alot more than preventing forest fires and walking old ladies across the road.
-GiH
-This isn't my dog, this is an aibo. My dog is years more advanced than this.
I live in Arizona, and I have four Sprint PCS phones: One for myself and three are for my "on-call" employees. These phones are on 24 hours a day for obvious reasons.
A disgruntled ex-employee in Delaware (who had been fired years ago), who happens to know my phone number, strolled into a Sprint PCS store in Kentucky, and asked the proprietor (or rather, the idiot working there) to bring up my account information. Now remember: All this person knew was my phone number. The Sprint PCS idiot happily punched up my account and showed the unidentified person my account details: All my phone numbers, numbers that had been called on these phones, how much my bill was... it goes on and on. In short, someone who only knew my phone number got access to all my "private" information, no questions asked.
I discovered this when the person in Delaware (who was in Kentucky at the time) called and told me, in the form of a threat. I immediately called the Sprint PCS customer support line and told them of the problem. They had some explaining to do, and I expected them to immediately change my phone numbers and account information. They refused, and explained that any such breach of security was impossible: The gentleman in the store should have asked for an account password. If the customer didn't know the password (or so claimed the customer support woman), the account information could not be accessed. This made sense, as computers do ask for passwords before showing any protected information. So I assumed the ex-employee was lying to annoy me, and dropped the issue.
Later that night, angry employees began calling me repeatedly and complaining of crank calls. Then, I got a call from the disgruntled shmoe in Delaware. Turns out, my assumption had been wrong. I came to the conclusion that private account information is protected by nothing more than a company policy: The employees in the stores can bring up any account, and the password is DISPLAYED along with all the other information. They're SUPPOSED TO ask you for the password before giving out any information. That's one hell of a security system, eh? So I immediately called Sprint PCS's customer support thing again, but this time, when they answered, I demanded to talk to a supervisor. The conversation went something like this:
Sprint PCS lady: May I ask about the nature of the call?
Me THE NATURE OF THE CALL IS SPRINT PCS GIVING OUT MY PERSONAL INFORMATION TO STRANGERS WITHOUT MY CONSENT!
Sprint PCS lady: One moment...
At this point, a supervisor lady answered, and I explained (rather angrily, I may add) exactly what happened, and DEMANDED that they change all my phone numbers IMMEDIATELY. (I was doing this as an immediate action, to be followed by any number of things, including the high possibility of cancelling my account altogether, followed by strong legal action.) Now the supervisor freaked out and got a bunch of people on my case within minutes. She explained that my conclusion about their security had been correct (that nothing is password protected at all), but that I could optionally make my account "high security", which basically means that certain other information (like a social security number or something) is needed before account details can be accessed. So I demanded that my account immediately be made high security. Then, she began the process of changing my phone numbers, and mentioned that it would cost some amount of dollars to make the change. At that point, I became pissed and said, "I'M STILL CONSIDERING WHETHER I'M GOING TO SUE YOU AND YOU'RE GOING TO CHARGE ME TO CHANGE THE PHONE NUMBERS, AFTER YOUR COMPANY SCREWED UP?!?!?!?" She realized the error of her ways and waived the fees. I continued to raise hell with Sprint PCS for an hour or so, making DAMN SURE that no errors would occur in my next bill (because every time a change is made with them, errors show up in the next bill or two and you have to call and bitch about it, especially when you have multiply phones), and that international calls won't be disabled on the phones (because enabling international calls is a long and complicated process with them, one that raised my blood pressure to the sky too), and that various other problems won't pop up. In all, they were a bit helpful, considering they did screw me over.
But anyway, that was MY story of how much their security sucks.