Computer Security Is A Myth - Learn To Appreciate Technology

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were the two responsible for developing UNIX while working for Bell Laboratory’s. With the advancement of phone technology in the early 1970’s, AT&T needed an operating system that would provide stable services for thousands of users at a time. Ritchie used a modified version of the Basic Combined Programming Language to develop UNIX, and later renamed his revision to simply, B. After several advancements and revisions during 1972, B became known as C. The major advantage C provided was the ability to port the operating system to other chipsets (UGA). This would allow functionality on almost any system architecture. Thirty years later, C is still widely used and accepted as a high end programming language.

Toward the end of the 1970’s, several copies of UNIX made there way to Universities, Government Labs, and average users. As a result of remaining Open Source, several worthy contributions come from people all over the world. Responses and support for the operating system lead small teams or groups of people to eventually develop their own varieties known as distributions. From this amazing system comes a torrent of distributions, each designed for a specific task or tasks. FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, Irixx, Sparc, AIX, and even Macs contain their own unique properties, but get their roots from UNIX. In the early 1980’s, inner city kids with access to computers explored more than just the World Wide Web. Dumpster diving involves searching corporate dumpsters for login credentials, or other valuable information. Eventually, these kids would sharpen their skills and learn to disrupt the proper flow of a program, resulting in new methods of attack. Experienced and overly educated computer enthusiasts, known as hackers, find ways to take advantage of these flaws. Individuals proficient in a high end programming language are capable of developing a program designed to exploit the vulnerability.

An exploit’s result depends on the capabilities of the code segment being exploited. For example, Crontab is a *nix program designed to carry out certain tasks at predetermined times. In certain versions of Crontab, the programmers failed to implement a fail-safe method to handle certain command line parameters. Remote attackers take advantage of the vulnerability by using the root privileged Crontab to execute well crafted commands in an effort to gain escalated privileges. Once the vulnerability is discovered, software developers are usually quick to resolve the issue by correcting the erroneous code and releasing a new version.

Another popular method used to gain root privileges remotely involves a vulnerability found in certain software designed to provide access to different file systems. The way a vulnerable NFS server handles requests to mount file systems allows malicious intruders to replace segments of data within the memory, usually granting escalated privileges on the machine. The exploit is made possible because the buggy program associated with the server software, mountd, usually runs with root privileges. Once again, the flaw was presented to the creators and corrected in later versions.

The term computer virus was first used by anti virus software developer, Fred Cohen. In November of 1988, the first self replicating virus was spreading on Arpanet, the U.S.’s government controlled pre-release of what we know today as the Internet. A worm written by Robert Morris was responsible for infecting nearly six thousand university and government networks. Morris was sentenced three years probation, and forced to pay a $10,000 fine.

Software communities continue to improve upon distributions. Because the majority of distributions are open source, people are able to see the code and make positive adjustments to further the advancement of these amazing tools. Open source software is to The Lottery as private software is to your day job. Debates and discussions have taken place among some of the computer industry’s top developers. Many claim open source software has a leading edge because anyone with programming knowledge is able to make a worthy contribution. Downside of the private software is, average users or non employee’s of Microsoft are unable to take part in the actual development, but can contribute ideas and fixes to flaws.

PC manufactures usually ship PC’s with the latest version of Windows already installed. In recent versions, Microsoft implemented raw packet handling into their operating system, granting malicious hackers the ability to create several devious tricks. Altering the source IP address of a packet header can make information appear as if the originating source is valid. Several phishing scams make effort to persuade users their password will be lost in a system upgrade if they don’t login by clicking the link in the fake email. Once clicked, the link directs the user to a valid looking site claiming to be a particular company. Phishing scam artists usually aim to retrieve vital information for Paypal accounts, bank accounts, Hotmail accounts, etc. Security certificates even appear valid, but only because the vulnerable operating system is unable to effectively handle raw packets.

Similar to the Crontab and mountd vulnerabilities listed above, Windows also has flaws in the way files are shared with NetBIOS. Certain versions of NetBIOS shares allow remote users to execute commands with administrator capabilities. The attacker can essentially command the unsuspecting machine to download a file of their choice, usually a Trojan virus or backdoor, thus granting the attacker full access. Since the release of Windows 2000, malicious hackers have taken advantage of this and many other flaws to compile large lists of these exploited machines. Once a decent size list is compiled, the attacker has the combined bandwidth of all the exploited machines at their disposal. The results can be devastating if the compromised machines are used for Distributed Denial of Service attacks. The attacker can tell all of the compromised machines to send packets of information to a target of choice. Once the command is initiated, small but continuous packets of information will be sent from hacked machines, to the attacker’s target. The target will be bombarded with information, preventing a legitimate user from using a once provided service.

Our traces will remain forever logged within servers throughout different regions. Software will continue to develop as security vulnerabilities continue to unveil. Privacy will eventually become a word of the past. Evolution is present, just like any other era: dumpster diving, remote buffer overflows, social engineering. Attack methods will continue to advance, unless people learn to appreciate technology and realize that security is a myth.