From: InfoSec News (isnC4I.ORG)
Date: Wed Apr 11 2001 - 02:18:14 CDT

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1014-201-5560506-0.html?tag=bt_pr

By Robert Lemos
Special to CNET News.com
April 10, 2001, 11:10 a.m. PT

Hackers and security experts may share a similar motto: Know thine
enemy.

In February 2000, David Dittrich, the 39-year-old security
administrator for the University of Washington, and "Mixter," a
22-year-old creator of tools for launching attacks against Web sites,
faced off virtually when Mixter's program--the Tribe Flood
Network--was used to inundate Yahoo, CNN and six other major Internet
sites with data.

The denial-of-service attacks slowed access to the sites--and in some
cases made the sites unreachable--for hours at a time.

Dittrich, who had analyzed TFN and other denial-of-service tools,
became the expert of the hour, while Mixter--because the culprit who
used his tools hadn't been found--became its villain.

In a recent interview at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver,
British Columbia, the two revealed that though they use their skills
differently, Dittrich knows a lot about hacking and Mixter is
well-informed about security.

When did you start doing security?

Dittrich: I actually sort of grew into it as a by-product of doing
support. I taught myself, then started with the University of
Washington doing support for the Unix workstations, and there were so
many Unix compromises that I had to end up helping people figure out
what happened and how to secure their systems. And it was such
fascinating stuff.

When did you first start seeing the denial-of-service attacks? Your
systems were being used to launch the attacks against the University
of Minnesota, right?

Dittrich: Yeah, actually a little bit before that. We had DOS attacks
going against our systems for years...It wasn't until May or June 1999
that we started seeing Trinoo (an early distributed denial-of-service
tool) on a bunch of systems.

And then you saw the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in
February of 2000?

Dittrich: Yeah, against Yahoo. And that's the thing--everybody says
DDoS, Feb. 8, that's when it happened. But no, it had been going on
long before that.

Mixter, when did you start doing security?

Mixter: I have been interested in security for many years. In 1997 or
'98, I was on (chat service) IRC and doing pretty much stupid things,
and then basically the police showed up. Actually it was not that much
of a problem. But after that I started seriously getting into coding
and everything.

What did the police say when they showed up? Why did they show up?

Mixter: I did not do intrusions, but I used some German public phone
numbers and then later I found out that I wasn't supposed to use them.
At that time, I was not aware of the legal situation at all. I didn't
even consider what I was doing to be illegal.

(Outside attack) was always a problem, because our network had no kind
of protection. We were getting viruses and all kinds of things. I got
to analyze an awful lot of intrusions.

Dittrich: Did you ever take programming classes?

Mixter: No, no, no. I started on my own. I was good at...machine
language.

I went to college for a year and a half. I think I will do college
when I finally have some success.

When you did create TFN?

Mixter: When I actually thought about it was in 1999, after all the
other DOS (attacks) went down. I'd always try to go on IRC and talk to
other people and use my reputation or whatever. I got enough
information to relate to what the architecture has to look like.
That's when I already knew something about router programming.

Are you still maintaining TFN?

Mixter: No. I am now programming for my company. It might become
popular again, so I would rather not.

So do you consider yourself a black hat (a hacker who breaks into
computers illegally)?

Mixter: No, not at all.

Gray hat? White hat?

Mixter: Actually, white. But I guess others think gray.

How about you (Dittrich); are you white hat (a hacker who works to
improve system security)? I saw that you took a black hat at
registration.

Dittrich: That's a functional reason. Anything white with me is going
to end up dirty.

No, I used to do little prank things in college, but I never got into
breaking into other people's systems on my own.

Did you care that TFN was being used to attack Web sites, Mixter?

Mixter: No, at the time I didn't care about the bandwidth attacks when
I made the first version. The second version I made much more
technical, so the script kiddies wouldn't be able to use it. But the
first version I didn't very much want a technical challenge.

I think you really see a small group of people are causing a major
amount of problems.

What did you think of TFN?

Dittrich: It wasn't used very long. Stacheldraht was much friendlier.

What are you working on now, Mixter?

Mixter: I am looking at something you could use to make worm packages,
but with more intelligence than those today.

Dittrich: It seems that would be the next step. Automate the creation
of back doors.

What do you think about people creating tools that can be used
maliciously, like what Mixter did?

Dittrich: Well, there's a lot of riding on the backs of giants that
goes on--taking advantage of people who know something that you can
use. But there is a lot more noise out there that they create, like
script kiddie attacks because they can now do it.

There is some truth in that a lot of these problems, no one sees as
being a problem--like some of these vendors or customers. You go to a
software company and they say, "We don't need to take care of this
until it becomes a problem." They'd much rather add a new feature.

In a way, you almost need something to happen, but it's a waste of
money.

So you need something like the Melissa virus, which didn't do a lot of
damage, but raised awareness?

Dittrich: Yeah, if it had that effect, it is good. But I don't think
it is viable to do that sort of thing for that point.

So in your mind it's a question of whether the ends justify the means?

Dittrich: I guess a better way to say it is if Mixter is out helping
develop collusion, that's when I have a problem. It's hard, because
look at the amount of time it takes to figure out what happened. It
takes a lot of people to do a lot of work and a lot of skill.

Either apply it creating problems for other people or apply it to
creating solutions. Because if all the people that were out there
developing these thing were out there developing solutions...security
solutions--and all the little kiddies that were out looking to emulate
somebody were emulating that--then we wouldn't have so many programs
that poke holes in products.

Mixter: There is no relation between people who write the exploits and
the holes in the program. One point why I have given up exploit
writing myself is that it didn't make a difference. If someone found a
hole, within two or three days there would be at least one exploit
written.

Do you regret writing the Tribe Flood Network?

Mixter: No. Maybe the way I published it could have been different. I
only started doing professional security with the company in late
1999.

You are doing a lot of computer forensics stuff. Are you going to be
doing that for a while?

Dittrich: Yeah, it is a really interesting area. There are a lot of
problems to be solved. There aren't that many people in it who are
really experienced. The administrators don't know how to use simple
tools...They don't know how to think about low-level functions.

I can tell them, "Here is traffic coming from your system. I know your
system is hacked." And they say, "Well, the computer doesn't show
anything like that, so...you're lying to me."

Then they want me to tell them how they broke in, but you can't do
that unless you have access to the system. And there are only so many
people who do forensics. It is pretty challenging.

What do you think the biggest problem for security is right now?

Mixter: It's still education, right?

Dittrich: Yeah, probably. Most people don't understand either from the
system owner or the user perspective how the security holes are there.

I keep using the analogy of the Wild West. When people first moved out
here, they had no idea that they had to look out for bears and Indians
running around. It was a pretty hostile environment that they moved
into with whatever skills they had. A lot of people died, trains were
being robbed all the time. It took a long time before the legal
structure was in place or they could protect money transfers and stuff
like that. That's where we kind of are right now.

A lot of people are going to suffer until they realize that the
Internet is a more hostile environment than they first realized.

So you think that people should be educated before they get online?

Dittrich: I think that we should require that someone show a certain
level of skill before we give them an IP address. There is a huge cost
to not being on the network, so perhaps that will teach them. We have
huge warning labels on hair driers; why not on the Internet?

When I went over to Europe, it really tripped me out. We went up this
rail car to the top of the mountain. There was a family there having a
picnic and there was a little kid dangling his feet over the edge. And
my dad said, "What a terrible father. This kid's going to fall." I
think you teach little kids to be careful around cliffs. You are
responsible for yourself.

Do you think companies are standing next to the cliff?

Dittrich: I think companies are running toward the cliff. "Let's put
everything on the Internet" is what they say.

ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com
---
To unsubscribe email LISTSERVSecurityFocus.com with a message body of
"SIGNOFF ISN".

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]