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South Pole Research Station Hacked Twice
Marda writes "It's been known for a while that Romainian cyber extortionists cracked the computer network at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station last year. Now SecurityFocus is reporting that another computer intruder penetrated the station just two months before, and cracked the data acquisition system for the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), a radiotelescope that measures properties of the cosmic microwave background. It turns out the station was insecure 'purposely, to allow for our scientists at this remotest of locations to exchange data under difficult circumstances,' according to internal reports."
Why can't they just leave our unsecured network alone? Next we'll have to secure that WiFi network so the Australians stop leeching.
insecure purposely? what about SSH? what about VPN? jesus, arent these scientist smart? cant they use some tools for that matter, cant someone creat a gui so the dont have to?
this is the most riddiculous thing I've ever heard.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
all your base belong to us!
Must be the penguins out tehre.
That's cold, man... that's cold!
I almost had FP, but the latency out here on the south pole is horrible.
Purposefully insecure? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. And I've heard it often. :)
There must be SOME technology (VPNs, as previously mentioned, perhaps) that can make it both easy and secure?
Heck, if they'll buy me the books and fly me down there, I'll fix it myself.
Some people are just plain jerks. Sure, I want to know if my financial information is safe. But why should hackers take the time to bother scientific equipment?
I can just see it now. A buoy in the ocean with millions of dollars in scientific instruments and sensors, collecting data for good of all mankind. Then some hacker finds his way in through the radio connection and manages to burn out or blow up the equipment by playing with the settings. His excuse? "See! It should have been secure! Next time you'll know better!" Way to miss the point, jack.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
that pure blocks of ice a firewall does not make.
Come on, physical location means nothing now!!!
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
In a computer sense, or in a pristine wilderness sense?
If the latter, then I'd like to point out that there's a great deal we can learn about the Earth's climate and biological history, as well as contained ecosystems. (Lakes under the ice with more than just bacteria? Who knew there'd be enough O2 for animal life?)
If the former, well, you know those haxxor guys...
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
There used to be a machine at McMurdo Station called mcmvax.mcmurdo.gov. I remember back in, oh, 1994 or so, sending finger requests to their machine and using the VMS equivalent of talk(1) (can't remember what it was called...) to send text messages to the folks logged on. I don't remember ever getting a response, though. It was also kind of fun to do traceroutes and pings to the machine. The network path was insane...apparently it went over satellite and the latency was usually at least 800ms+. Ah, memories...I miss the days when almost everyone ran open finger and talk/ntalk daemons.
How difficult are we actually talking about here? As far as I know, an international battle frontline can be the most difficult circumstance for system administrators to work in. But again, the military networks are the most secure. Needles to say, the hackers should know that destroying computer networks in an isolated place such as the Antartica could even go to the extent of costing lives, and it is high time the Amunden-Scot admins secured their networks.
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
Scientists are generally knowledgable, but only in their field of specialization. You don't expect a particle physicist to know about macro biology, and you don't expect an ornithologist to know about particle physics.
Computer security is another one of those fields that requires its own study time to be competent in, and most people aren't interested or don't want to spend the time.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Hackers are harmless dorks. Crackers are the evil ones. Learn the difference
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The main reason for running unsecure, is that the data pipe running to the South Pole is only open for just a few seconds at a time. You have to be able to transfer your data packet in little bitty windows of opportunity. If you have your data packaged in nice large security packets it will take forever to transfer your files, if at all. As soon as they come up with a better way to communicate with those stations I think they will be the first to secure there data.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
CowboyNeal! You have just slashdotted an insecure server running the lifeline of dedicated scientists, far far away in Antartica! You insensitive clod!
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
Hate to break it to you but, Antartica has been split between half a dozen nations for a long time now, Australia in fact claims the largest chunk.
Would some Slashdotter with some spare time please hack their network and install SSH and a firewall? Thanks!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
1. They wouldn't have been 0wn3d so easily
2. It would keep them toasty warm!
Best Buy can have you arrested
FTA:
"Given the fact that no financial records or systems were compromised, no safety or loss of life was threatened, and no critical system corrupted, we need to balance legitimate security needs with the legitimate needs of our scientists at the Pole," the memo reads.
...Other documents show that less than two months earlier the NSF's security team was plunged into a similar fire drill when a computer intruder named "PoizonB0x" penetrated the primary and backup data acquisition servers for a radio telescope at the station called the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), which measures properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation -- the afterglow of the Big Bang. The intruder, rated a prolific website defacer by tracking site Zone-H, used his moment of cosmic access to erect a webpage on the servers proclaiming, "I love my angel Laura."
Now, I'm not one for people snooping around in my stuff when they're not invited or anything, but consider this: The first hack modified a web page on a system that collects monitoring data (but most likely does not contain other meaningful data, like formulas), and the second intruder accessed no financial data, did not threaten safety, and did not corrupt any critical systems.
Isn't it possible that the systems that were compromised were actually left insecure, not necessarily "on purpose", but because they felt that there wasn't much of a need to secure them in the first place? They probably calculated the possible risks and decided that, if both systems did in fact only contain informational webpages or data collected from their equipment, that there wasn't much point in worrying a lot about securing them (after all, who would really care about the data besides them?).
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
...and expect to get net burgaled. Really is that simple. Regardless of the technical or budgetary constraints that's the way it is. The internet is a nice borderless place and even if everyone at your base station is nice and honest, that doesn't mean there aren't criminals within reach of your data.
The correct way to deal with this is to have a DMZ - a nice public facing internet machine that isn't as security critical as your primary experiment instrument. This may mean a compromise in terms of budget and/or data availability.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As someone who's set up Internet servers in the high Arctic and who quite recently found himself posting 'I'm still alive' updates to my blog as the remote South Pacific island I was on was being battered by a hurricane, I STILL made sure to use ssh/ssl to connect to remote servers.
I was dialed in over a microwave link running at about 10Kbps. Even pathetic bandwidth is no excuse not to use simple security measures.
P.S. I'm posting from yet another Pacific Island, where I regularly use an ssh tunnel to connect to my home IMAP server, over a modem line that I share with 12 other computers on our local network.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I just found Big Dead Place a couple days ago, and read their account of one of these 'hacker attacks' and Raytheon Polar Services' (RPSC) reaction to it.
Short version: Everyone at the pole was pissed. Denver (RPSC headquarters) took away their porn^H^H^H^Hnet access, and thus made a bunch of already deprived individuals even more deprived.
There's a ~500 K newsletter-spoof PDF on the site that expresses some of their feelings.
- "Kudos to the Denver IT staff for quickly responding to a hacker attack on South Pole Station. The attack occurred Friday night Denver time and our crack professional team denied the attacker access by immediately pulling the plug on Pole. They got back to dealing with the aftermath of this knee jerk response sometime Wednesday shortly after the last chocolate sprinkle donut had been eaten but shortly before nap time."
There's also: Top Ten Reasons South Pole Can't Access the InternetSome other interesting things on the site:
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
The Amundsen-Scott station is very expensive to maintain. During the winter the entire base population can be as low as 17 individuals; this can increase significantly during a few months out of the summer, but with cuts in funding the total personnel at the station remains low.
The station is designed for one thing: scientific research. With that in mind, the people you send to the station are those capable of doing the research, or those that are capable of maintaining the station so that others can do their research. Most of the folks there are conversant in a half-dozen jobs - *because they have to be*. There isn't enough funding for critical positions, much less a position like 'computer network administrator' which is nothing more than dead weight 99% of the time. A person who, if they can't also fix tractor engines, maintain the fuel-based heating system, and help calibrate various pieces of astronomical equipment, is nothing more than a waste of space, food, and energy.
No doubt the Amundsen-Scott folks decided to do business 'as usual', e.g., in a not very secure manner, because a) who the hell would want to hack the system when there's nothing to gain?, and b) there isn't anyone there who's life work is system security.
(In fact, I'm willing to bet they *could* secure the system in a decent manner, but never saw the point of it since they couldn't conceive of why anyone would want to mess with it in the first place. Frankly, I can't either; it takes a real jack-off to do something like this.)
All those clueless gits out there who scream "they should have a network administrator!" might want to keep in mind that a network administrator isn't worth his weight in fuel to ship out there, much less keep around during the eight months of the year they're pretty much cut off from the outside world. And yes, that means *you*; if all you know is network administration/security then you're useless waste of good oxygen at Amundsen-Scott, and the people there neither want or need you cluttering up the cramped base, eating their food and using their heat.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
...is, of course, here.
Ah! So maybe they are South Pole honeypots then. Put up some non-secure machines with interesting data, and let the script kiddies think they've hacked the south pole, when in reality the real machines are nice and safe.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Remember, RMS was against introducing passwords into the MIT AI lab, and when they eventually did it he sabotaged the system buy coercing users to choose a blank password. He even brags about it in the Revolution OS documentary.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Ease of use does not mean it has to be insecure!! Strong passwords and patched applications do not make usage difficult!!
Seriously, if you're setting up a network for a long term project, you set it up once, and move it all over there with everythig ready to go... (which means the Amundsun base might have been permanently been stuck with a network of 386's, had things worked that way.) Of course, my guess is that the computers wandered over there one at a time, with no coordinated plan - and no through beyond "we need a few computers, which people in the states need access too, located at the south pole!)
The key issue is that if an academic is given a computer, they're not going to have the faintest idea of what's required security wise. [In fact, I've seen academics go out and buy really big (30") screens and fancy macintoshs just to run email and a browser, if that gives you an idea of the mindset of many in the scientific community.] - and other than the penguins (who only work for herrings and probably don't want to pay tax), there aren't any "neighborhood geeks" nearby to help them with their machines.
I just spent two years in a science laboratory in North America at a VERY large institution. Of the two hundred or so scientists in that department alone, maybe ten or fifteen knew enough about computers to write HTML - and probably not a lot further. As the department evolved over time, computers were added in one at a time, by whom ever felt like putting in a computer. Thus, there wasn't a single coordinated plan , and some of the computers were left completely vulnerable intentionally! If there's no one in charge, no structure to coordinate the addition of computers, and no one able to make the decisions to put an infrastructure in place, there's no one to insist on security standards. Can you say welcome mat to hackers?
I'd be willing to bet that that's exactly what happened at the South Pole. Someone decided they wanted to be able to share files with another scientist, and I'd doubt either had ever heard of SSH. Net result: they intentionally put a hole in the flimsy security they had to begin with. I can imagine the thought process: "I need to share a file with someone 30000km away.. lets just create an annonymous ftp to c:\, that way I won't have to worry about them not having access to anything they need!"
Finally, the key point is that if you have computers at the south pole, it's going to cost an exorbitant amount to send someone out to mantain them, and the only alternative is to have the scientists call "tech support" back in the states (or is india closer?), which is probably like talking my father through a computer problem. It's bad enough when you're there, but 100x worse when you're at opposite ends of the country. Of course, if you leave a few "holes" open intentionally, someone back home can log in and maintain it for you. (-;
Sorry for the overlong rant!
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
What they need is more ICE!
Is "cracking" cold computers easier (like ice)?
John Kerry is a Joke!
Can you really call it "cracking" if there was no security in the first place?
It's like in Fahrenheit 9/11 where the cops "infiltrate" the peace group whose membership is, uh, open to the public.
It's easy to say the words "remote access", isn't it?
Call your local provider, ask them about getting a line to the South Pole. Keep calling until you find someone who can provide it. Once you do, ask them how much it will cost. Now, calculate how many slaves you'd have to keep working in full-time positions to be able to afford any decent amount of bandwidth.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
With the risk of being OT here, the situation is rather simple. Think of the news as one giant magnifying glass. When a .ro cracker breaks and steals something news break and "Romanians did it again". There is no such thing as a cracking hype in my country but the news make the association between Romanians and cracking look so BIG, so strong, so people stop thinking that this might be just some poor smuck trying to get ahead in a country where people like my mom earn something like 100$ after 30 years of public service. This kind of crackers are present everywhere. Ok some of the .ro crackers were ingenious enough to crack some pretty tight servers but this doesn't justify generalizing.
People should STOP thinking that the world is black and white and START seeing the shades of gray. Good and Evil are in each and every one of us and the side the people see is often highly dependent on the angle of view.
Here is an example: Is Nicolae Paulescu EVIL or GOOD? If he is EVIL will you kill him if you have the chance to go back in time, if he is GOOD how come that he is such an anonymous considering what he has done for humanity?
If they are smart enough to use packet or satellite, then they can use BSD or Linux.
Many measurement devices don't have required software ported for [insert your *nix].
OOo doesn't have the same capabilities as Excel, essential in many enviroments.
And who is going to pay for porting that Excel/VBA/Access/MS SQL/etc stuff to BSD/Linux?
What is the cost of replacing a trashed system?
RTFA. The system wasn't trashed. Very little was done to it.
How much does downtime cost you?
Considering that they only have communication access to the outside world for a few hours a day, very little.
What does it cost to get someone to your site to fix your system?
When the fuel could be used to ship needed equipment, food, or just used for heating, a whole hell of a lot.
What POTENTIAL expenses/risks do you face if someone uses your equipment to do damage to another site.
Considering the equipment on-base and the very limited daily access, this amounts to a big, fat zero. Or did you think they had cable?
People that have heard you rant about how "worthless" sys admins are start to wonder how credible the rest of your statements are.
A system administrator IS worthless at Amundsen-Scott, compared to a mechanic, a scientist, or an electrician. Do a bit of research on the subject before talking out of your ass.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
RTFA. The life support systems weren't controlled by the hacked system. That was added by the US department of propaganda to make the threat of cyber-terrorism sound scarier.
(5:30am South Pole)
Bob:"Mornin' Joe"
Joe:"Hey Bob"
Bob:"I think I froze my ass last night. Did we get those new heaters in last night?"
Joe:"I Don't know. I heard a plane, but I think it was that horses-ass Lumbergh with the corporate jet dropping by again."
Bob:"What a prick."
Bob:"Would you hurry up and get that coffee made?"
Joe:"Chill dude, my fingers are half friggin froze too."
Bob:"Any new stuff on the schedule this morning from Corporate Overlord ?"
Joe:"Heh.. you mean Massuh?"
Bob:"*lol*"
Joe:"Nah, just more bitching and whining about budget cuts.. insurance cuts.. pay cuts.."
Joe:"..oh, and that hottie from accounting sent you email."
Bob:"No shit!? What did she say?"
Joe:"...Here, check it out" (passes laptop to Bob)
Bob:"....Click here, huh?..."
Joe:"....what the hell?" (hard drive churning sounds)
Bob:"oops...shit.." (hard drive really churning)
Joe:"Hit the power, dude!!"
Bob:"I am! I gotta hold that fucking switch for 5 seconds"
Joe:"Pull the power cord!"
Bob:"aw shit.. batteries!"
Joe:(knocks over hot coffee)
Bob:"Oww!...coffee's finally hot.."
Joe:"Dammit.. anyone see you come in here?"
Bob:"No, I don't think so."
Joe:"Wow look at that telescope spin!"
Bob:"I didn't know it could revolve that fast!"
Joe:"It can't!"
Joe:"Hit that friggin screensaver and lets bail!"
*click*
*panicked rustling sounds*
*hurried footsteps fade out*
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The point of the securityfocus.com article was not "South Pole Research Station Hacked Twice", but that the US DoJ has used this as a spin campaign to justify the cyberterrorism provisions of the patriot act.
However, the FBI and DoJ's version of events is contradicted by the NSF internal assessment of the attack...
The previous security problems at the South Pole appears in the second to last paragraph as support for the claim that the attack was not threatening to life support at Amudsen-Scott.
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ^H^H^H^H^H the south pole
ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS^H^H^H^H^H^H^H pwnings THERE
-the black obelisk
..........FULL STOP.
Romainian cyber extortionists
Look, here's some free advice. If you want to make people care about the problem, you need to call them "cyber-TERRORISTS".
Many people don't know what extortion really means, but they know that terrorists can hurt their children.
Geez, its a good thing you guys are mostly libertarian/democrat/green, because you'd make crappy republicans.
...Never mind
While I agree that it's nuts to trust an open system on the internet these days (though it should not be!), there are plenty of folks out there (including brilliant scientists) who still don't realize the danger. It's too bad nobody with a clue had some oversight.
OTOH, I think this would be a great rallying point to bring together a multinational task force, or at least some headhunters under public sanction, to start going after the scum who screw people over on their networks. It's against the law for me to break into your house. If I do this, I'm liable to go to jail and/or pay a fine. IN a rational society I would also be liable to pay restitution, but that's another story.
If I break into your house and destroy everything you own, I'm liable for big trouble. If, in the process, I do things which could endanger you, I'm liable for bigger trouble.
Why isn't this true for computers and networks?
You know. I'm disappointed that /. would get this wrong. Although the content of this topic has it right, why would you then title it with "hacked" instead of "cracked"? Of all places, /. should be setting the bar by using correct terminology.
assert(expired(knowledge));