Slashdot Mirror
July 6th - Website Defacement Day?
pabl0 writes "According to an article from SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle), a challenge has been posted, inviting web-site defacers to alter the content of as many web sites as possible on July 6th, with an apparent limit of 6,000 websites per contestant. Looks like this would be a good time to make sure all those web-server security patches are applied!"
I notice the 6th is a Sunday. It would have to be, so all the children can do it without missing school.
July 7th was announced as national handcluffing day when hordes of hackers would be paraded around the streets in major cities.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Slashdot has little to do with the defacement. Slashdot is simply reporting this.
This is just really awful. A huge call out for Script Kiddies of the world to unite. Terrible.
*shakes head*
*looks around*
*starts researching latest exploits*
*runs*
Canadian Cynic, canadian politics is less boring than you
One is reminded of the perpetual debate in security: Whether to post an exploit to a group, in order for the vendor to have incentive to patch it, or wait and hope the vendor listens to you. There are excellent arguments on both sides.
This seems to be little different than that example. The challenge is unethical, as far as I am concerned. July 6 is a Sunday, for one thing--in general businesses do not hold normal shifts on a weekend, so this is going to surely cause more grief than an attack on, say, a Tuesday. Moreover, if successful, this could seriously halt a lot of legitimate business, personal, and other transactions across the Internet.
Is this a call to deface Web sites, or generally screw over sysadmins who oftentimes are paid beans to being with? Shameful.
Page deface!
Challenge - July 6
Please stay away
It's a bit like Mischief Night in the UK - I don't like it, but I don't bury my head in the sand and pretend people will forget about it. Instead I take precautions - move the car out of the way, make sure my windows and doors are locked and keep the cats in. It doesn't hurt to have a security test now and then.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
From the AP article:
"The purported "prize" for participating hackers was 500-megabytes of online
storage space, which made little sense to computer experts. They said
hackers capable of breaking into thousands of computers could easily steal
that amount of storage on corporate networks."
Em, if you RTFA, you would see
/. but only flame the gov when you must.
"Frankly, hacker challenges occur frequently, and we don't think they all rise to the level of a warning," Homeland Security spokesman David Wray said.
Yes this is
puts ("Python r0cks\n");
The purported "prize" for participating hackers was 500-megabytes of online storage space
WOOHOO! After all that hacking into thousands of web-sites with who knows how many terabytes of storage, I can now get almost a FULL CD of free web-storage!!!! WOOHOO!!!
Wait, can I still use that in prison?
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Please don't feed the trolls.
New York officials urged companies to change default computer passwords, begin monitoring Web site activities more aggressively, remove unnecessary functions from server computers and apply the latest software repairs from vendors such as Microsoft Corp.
Well it took some doing, but I managed to get that latest Microsoft service pack installed on my web server. It said that it fixed a lot of issues, so I felt it was worth it, even though I run a Slackware 9.0 Linux server. Here's to hoping it reboots alright!
"But I'm sure that some people find a way to make money (or pork) from this "announcement". *sigh*"
That gets me wondering.... do you think this whole thing was set up by some security firm(s) to boost business?
~Berj
Registrant:
;)
of, Day (TPEEWXQFBD)
11 Albert Rd
AMITYVILLE, NY 11701
US
Does that place exist? If so *deface that*
I doubt it will be a real address though, however the idiocy of some people does often suprise me!
Bullshit. If anything, this will SAVE companies money in the long run. You think its BETTER for a web server to sit there with unpatched security exploits, waiting for a truly malicious hacker to do something nasty to the server like zombify it, than for some joker to deface it, and in doing so alert the administrators to the presence of the hole (hopefully closing it?
Any company should be able to swiftly and easily restore their site from backups. If they don't have backups, they are STUPID and DESERVE what they get.
It's technological darwinism, curtailing harmless hackers just helps loopholes survive for malicious hackers to exploit. Security flaws should be pointed out and if it takes a rude awakening like a website redesign, then so be it.
Better than having your box end up participating in a worldwide DOS a year or two down the line.
right both of you have said it, please, what the hell is a handcluff?!
Gee, I'd never have known about this small-time hacker stunt if /. hadn't brought it to the attention of millions. Talk about using your powers for mayhem, /. ...
Kevin Fox
Regarding 'Mischief Night' -
:-}>
In America, we call that 'Weekends' and 'Holidays'...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
if i can replace your index.html..
i can probably replace or delete many other things. Yeah, still hacking.
Hmmm...july 3rd...counting down...
;)
;) Those are surely bill-able hours right?
/.'s troll ratio will drop, and IRC will become a pleasant experience....NOT! :^D
But...let's look on the positive side:
Let's say thousands of websites DO get de-faced (w00t - how very unlikely
A) Thousands of extra hours of work created to clean up the mess. (or not - y'all make backups right
And it's on the weekend, wahey! Double rates!
B) All the administrators of web-servers that WERE defaced will HAVE to examine the security of their web-servers. Improvements will HAVE to be made. If 'thousands' of web-servers are forced to improve their security...is that a bad thing?
C) Perhaps a lot of administrators (and PHB's) will notice that the most commonly defaced web-servers were (or are likely to be) those that run M$ software of some sort. Would that make them more likely to switch to OTHER software?
D) Hundreds of lamo script-kiddies prosecuted, jailed and/or permanently disallowed from using the internet. Excellent. Perhaps
"The FBI is taking this very seriously," FBI spokesman Bill Murray said. "Hacking is a crime and those who participate in this activity will be investigated and brought to justice."
Hell yeah!! Remember how vindictive he was trying to get that damned gopher in Caddy Shack?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Hehe I smell a poll question brewing in this post!
Who's website would you go to see if you knew it was defaced?
* RIAA/MPAA
* SCO
* AOL
* EMarketersAmerica.org
* That other jackass spammer with the sports car in michigan?
* Microsoft
* the cowboy neal foot fetish extravangaza
Patch and cover! Patch and cover!!
a world in progress...
Exactly... the parent post's author seems to be saying that only corporations have web sites.
If anything, it'll hit the "personal site" maintainer hardest, because they are the least likely to have backups, etc. If some prick hacks into a web site, deletes the original content, and puts up an "owned" site, that not only costs someone time, but also may cost them the content if they can't recover it. It's not like these script kiddies will differentiate between corporate and personal websites. Thinking that they would is just naieve.
I also take particular issue with the implied concept that "my time doesn't cost anything".
$0.02 (CDN)
on Wednesday July 02, @05:52PM, chloroquine said:
Our IT department just sent out a notice to the institute about security over the holiday weekend. I'd love to see our website hacked. It is one of those no useful content sites with lots of tasteful colours and pictures.
But don't quote me on that.
Aw, fuck...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
"First, these activities do not cost people money...hacked web sites costs people time"
I don't know about you, but I get paid money for my time. And if I have to fix my companies web site, then it's costing my employer (who happens to be a person, not a corporation) money.
Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun -Troy McClure
Saying that it doesn't cost money to people because it's corporations that pays the bill is pretty stupid of your part.
First, fixing the page is probably the least important factor to consider.
Since it's kind of a 'contest', who defaces the most websites, how much can you bet that a large % of them will be medium to small sites? Most will also be e-commerce related sites, since their security is often compromised by badly written e-commerce software.
Now, take the normal MomAndPops.com, which sells apple pies. Client comes to the site expecting to buy apple pie and then find out that the site become a Hacker Advertisement site of some sort, or even worst, says that Apple Pie causes cancer. What will they say? "I'll come back later when the website is restored"? I don't think so. Most probably: "Shit, they stopped selling apple pie because it gives cancer!". It's sad, but a lot of people are gullible.
So, the real problem is loss of sales because of it, and/or traffic/readership, and/or reputation or anything the website is based on. The longer the site remains defaced, the more the website loses. This is the real killer, especially for small to medium websites/e-commerce, and most of these aren't run by evil megacorporations.
And your attitude of saying it's not that big of a deal because the corporation has enough money to fix it, or won't pay the guy in overtime, is not very wise. Sure, most of them exagerates the 'cost' of hackers and such, but it doesn't mean it isn't substancial, or that it just costs a simple fix of the website.
Also, I have heard rumblings of yet another MS worm run scheduled to run rampant over the 4th of July holiday weekend. (Prepare for pager meltdown MS and network admins.)
I totally appreciate the heads up. In fact I did an external port scan of my Class B today and found out that the firewall monkeys had opened incoming ftp from anywhere to key servers. If it wasn't for this new threat I probably wouldn't have bothered to rattle the door knobs before the holiday.
I'd say that everyone has fair warning. Make sure your backups are up to date and that you don't have any easily hackable services exposed. Now the only question is, "Who will be embarrassed?"
Remember folks, it's not just about defacing, it's about defacing creatively.
Wow. I'm trying to be as nice as possible here, but you don't have a lot of experience in the real world, do you?
Let's say that just 6,000 websites are defaced. How many of those, do you think, will be Fortune 1000 corporations? And how many of them will be small businesses that may or may not be incorporated? Is it somehow evil to run a business as a corporation rather than a sole proprietership or general partnership?
And you seem to want to have it both ways; on the one hand, large corporations somehow exaggerate what it costs to recover from a hack, and on the other hand anyone who *is* hacked is incompetent and deserves what they get.
In fact, in the unlikely event that IBM's site is defaced, it would certainly cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There's a lot more to recovering from defacement than you seem to think. Hint: you are not done when you copying the original HTML page back in place.
For a large company, it means doing a massive project to determine what other systems could have been accessed using the defaced server as a middleman. And then examining those systems for signs of intrusion.
In the much more likely and frequent instances of a small business being defaced, it may or may not be financially ruinous, but it's certainly a lot more than the minor and greatly exaggerated inconvenience that you paint it as. These businesses don't have large IT staffs, and/or the technical know-how to slap themselves on the head and say "Damn! We should have installed that latest IIS hotfix."
It's an ugly situation, but it is absolutely an expensive one and has far wider repercussions than you seem to think.
Cheers
-b
They were shut down by their ISP (Affinity), but I still have the English version in my cache from an earlier viewing:
http://www.insecure.org/tmp/defacers-challenge/
Note that Insecure.Org DOES NOT in any way condone or promote this so-called challenge. I'm just providing the link so people can see what the fuss was about. I'm planning to add a note to that effect to the top of the page in a few minutes. What I found most humorous is that they ask people to register in advance by sending in their contact info. That is a really great idea :).
-Fyodor
Concerned about your network security? Try the free Nmap Security Scanner
Sometimes people have to be burned before they will respect fire extinguishers.
;)
Our main webserver got hacked just last weekend. It was a RedHat 7.2 that was up for about 450 days straight and was kept pretty well patched. Unfortunately, some custom Apache stuff kept us held back on patching httpd. I guess it really does only takes one weak link in the chain. Once they got in, they put in a rootkit called ZK and started setting up a hidden webserver where they were trying to sell web space on MY box.
Lucky for me, I had a couple of cron jobs in place that used a hidden copy of tripwire and chkrootkit to check for intrusion and shutdown the network interfaces after they mucked around with sshd and the known hosts file. A cheap trick, but it worked.
I'm actually glad it happened. My boss and all of upper management are finally taking security seriously, and I'm milking it for all its worth. Its basically a blank check to lock down the fort. We've eliminated 75% of static NATs, shoved things off the LAN and onto the DMZ, closed dozens of ports, sprung for RHN subscriptions, eliminated several old NT4 servers, and generally did away with all the "convenient hacks" our engineers insisted on.
After seeing this submission published, I noticed several folks who mentioned the very good point that by posting this, I may very well be drawing the attention to the contest that would make it a "success". I essentially responded to this via a newly posted article on my site, but thought it was worth posting here as well, so that hopefully my reasoning will make more sense. (Article Follows.)
Thanks,
Paul Robinson
gotclue.net
Website defacements cost companies real money. It may or may not be in the oft-quoted "millions" mark, but it is certainly a non-trivial figure.
For the benefit of those not in the SysAdmin/ITAdmin/Computer Security industries, I'll give you a quick rundown as to WHY they cost money.
Any form of system compromise is a major incident. Even compromises of Bastion hosts, which we expect to be compromised at some point, cost businesses money. Your opinion stems from ignorance of the issues involved and is exactly the sort of opinion most skiddiots have - although that doesn't make you one.
Janie took my gun...
I never understood the slashdot effect. How can a bunchh of slashdotters bring a system to its knees when they dont even RTFA?
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
Slashdot may have informed a bunch of hackers about Defacement day, they are also informing a large number sysadmins who will check their weekend back ups and prepare for a Sunday in the office.
Of course, the smart thing to do is to deface your own web site, then you can take the weekend off 'cause the hackers will think you've already been tagged.
Yeah?
Well guess what. They put the thing out there before I was hired and put a bunch of twitchy-clueless web hosting customers on it.
I got a new set of servers, got to design how it all works, all patched and good and ready to go. Know what I am waiting for? Server brackets. The boss's dad is makin em in his garage. Until then, I can't put the new ones up in the rack.
Then I get to migrate all of them-there sites to the shiney new servers and answer stupid phone calls to explain how DNS works, and explain how their ISP proxy server is fucking broken.
You think any of this is my choice? (Aside from the shiney new stuff.) Think anybody is going to stop and think "Gee, this might be patched tomorrow and it won't be a threat to anybody as a zombie then!" Nope. They won't think at all.
Your justification for web site defacement sucks. You might as well ass-rape your sister cuz she's not wearing a chastity belt. If I run across your mom, you'd better hope I don't use the same logic you do.
It's not Darwinism, it's vandalism.
I agree that there are a lot of lousy sysadmins out there, causing lots of problems by letting their machines get hacked. But you should think about how you think things should go a little bit. Maybe it would be better if you concentrated on educating those around you how to set up a web site properly, hmm?
(As for me, I hope the Spanish-speaking nitwits organizing this end up in Colombian-Federal-pound-you-in-the-ass Prison. They deserve it.)
"The FBI is taking this very seriously," FBI spokesman Bill Murray said. "Hacking is a crime and those who participate in this activity will be investigated and brought to justice."
Bill then claimed that July 6th would never arrive for him as he is forever stuck on Groundhog Day. He then shot himself in front of reporters.
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