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                Date: 1998-06-09
                 
                 
                Nuclear Hacks: Tuerkische Atombehoerden angegriffen
                
                 
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      q/depesche 98.6.9.1 
updating 98.6.7.2 
 
Nuclear Hacks: Türkische Atombehörden angegriffen 
 
Offenbar wurde das Istanbuler Cekmece Nuclear Research and Training Center erfolgreich aufgemacht. 
Täter: Wieder die MilWOrm group, angeblich Teenies aus den USA, Israel, Neuseeland & UK. 
 
 
relayed by newsbytes. 
 
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1998 JUN 8 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha, 
Newsbytes. The MilW0rm group, which last Wednesday apparently was able  
to gain access into India's Bhabha Atomic Research Center, appears to  
be continuing its attacks on nuclear research centers worldwide. This  
time, the group of teen-age hackers - more accurately known as  
"crackers" - allegedly gained access to servers in a Turkish nuclear  
research facility. 
 
According to John Vranesevich, founder of antionline.org, the teen-age  
intruders gained access to the Cekmece Nuclear Research and Training  
Center in Istanbul and retrieved hundreds of pages of memos and e-mail  
from scientists, including conversations between Turkish nuclear  
scientists and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 
 
The MilW0rm group, Vranesevich said, also apparently had assistance in  
accessing the Turkish facility from a second "hackgroup," which also  
has turned over "proof" that they also gained access to servers in  
Iran, Israel and Latvia. 
 
But like the information retrieved from BARC, none of the information  
stolen from the Turkish research center appears to be directly related  
to nuclear weapons research. There do appear, however, to be several  
encrypted documents downloaded from the Turkish facility, Vranesevich  
said. 
 
Since Newsbytes first broke the story on MilW0rm's penetration into the  
Indian nuclear research center last Wednesday afternoon, the group,  
which apparent consists of at least a half dozen teenagers from the  
US, the UK, Israel and New Zealand, also has claimed they are  
attempting to infiltrate nuclear research sites in Pakistan as well. 
 
But according to one Pakistani source, it would be difficult for any  
group to infiltrate the Pakistani centers. 
 
"Neither Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, nor Kahuta Research  
Laboratories (Uranium enrichment plant site and research center) have  
loopholes for external Internet hackers to log in," Rashida Shaikh told  
Newsbytes. "Computer systems installed over there for nuclear  
computation and information systems purpose are disconnected from  
Internet service. Even different remote computer centers are not on  
WAN (wide area network), except few. So hackers who log in planning  
to log in using Internet connectivity are just wasting their time." 
 
One US computer security expert, however, told Newsbytes that the  
telling comment in Shaikh's statement is "except few." 
 
"It only takes one connection," the security expert told Newsbytes. 
 
Meanwhile, a US Army spokesperson confirmed over the weekend that  
unauthorized sources did break into a US Army computer system last  
week, but declined to speculate whether that was the route MilW0rm took  
to gain access to the Indian facility. 
 
The incident, however, is being investigate by both the US Army and the  
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Army spokesperson Gerry Gilmore  
said. 
 
The Indian government vehemently denied on Friday that the breach  
resulted in the loss of sensitive information, saying the hackers only  
accessed e-mail messages of scientists and the Web site.  
 
"Recent access by hackers has been only to e-mail messages of  
scientists and BARC home page information, and the connections for  
these are isolated from all other computers used at BARC and obviously  
do not contain any sensitive information," said S. Narendra, principal  
spokesman for the government of India, reading a release from BARC  
officials.  
 
According to the MilW0rm group, they gained access to BARC by first  
going through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet  
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) site at tartarus.jpl.nasa.gov. From there,  
MilW0rm reportedly accessed a US Navy site, yokipc.navy.mil, and then 
the US Dental Command Center at dencom.army.mil. MilW0rm then  
reportedly used the Dental Command Center site as a jump point to India. 
 
Although Gilmore confirmed the Dental Command site was accessed, other  
sources told Newsbytes that the JPL site could find no evidence of  
unauthorized access. 
 
Gilmore also said the dencom site was immediately shut down, and has  
since been secured. 
 
India, meanwhile, has played down the unauthorized access into its 
atomic research center. 
 
As reported by Newsbytes, the chairman of the India Atomic Energy  
Commission, R Chidambaram, denied that MilW0rm gained access to  
sensitive information of any kind from the classified servers.  
Chidambaram said they could access only the BARC home page, which was  
in public domain, and some of BARC's e-mail messages. 
 
A BARC senior scientist confirmed that no critical data was wiped out  
from the BARC computer server, simply because the center physically  
isolates sensitive data from the Web and e-mail servers which are prone  
to such attacks. 
 
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TIP 
Download free PGP 5.5.3i (Win95/NT & Mac) from Arge Daten 
http://keyserver.ad.or.at/pgp/download/
                   
 
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edited by  
published on: 1998-06-09 
comments to office@quintessenz.at
                   
                  
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