The 'cupcake' hack
Author
Discussion

davislove

Original Poster:

2,295 posts

276 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
ha ha - this excellence!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-i...

but something i've always wondered - cue IT boys and girls - how the hell do you 'hack' a system? whats the point of entry?

davepoth

29,395 posts

229 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
Loads and loads of different ways. From the brute force one used on ACS:Law (DDoS it 'til it reboots, amusingly allowing the world + dog access to the root) to really complicated code injection assaults (using special codes that cause content databases and the like to do odd things).

Quite a high chance it was just a case of figuring out what software the server was running, navigating to the maintenance page, then logging in using username "admin" and password "password" though.

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

274 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
Unless times have changed, most illicit system access is gained by weedling out username and password details from an authorised user by:- dumpster diving, or plausible conman questionning "drong dring... dring dring... Hello, this is IT support here, we've had a report of an issue with x.... can you let us have the username and password you were logged in with when it occurred.... " and so on. Boringly low tech really.

Caulkhead

4,938 posts

187 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
davislove said:
but something i've always wondered - cue IT boys and girls - how the hell do you 'hack' a system? whats the point of entry?
Have a read of the forums over at www.astalavista.com

ewenm

28,506 posts

275 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
Einion Yrth said:
Unless times have changed, most illicit system access is gained by weedling out username and password details from an authorised user by:- dumpster diving, or plausible conman questionning "drong dring... dring dring... Hello, this is IT support here, we've had a report of an issue with x.... can you let us have the username and password you were logged in with when it occurred.... " and so on. Boringly low tech really.
yes The users are usually the weakest point in any "secure" system.

Murph7355

42,012 posts

286 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
Why cupcakes?

Why not tweak the original instructions slightly so they pop themselves during the making of the bomb? Now *that* would have been both highly amusing and rid us of a few wannabe terrorists (would probably have taken a while to spot).

As it is they'll just move their site elsewhere over a nice cup of tea and a cake.

sharpfocus

13,966 posts

221 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
Why cupcakes?
Gently testing the waters with a first PR stunt for the recently admitted 'best form of defence...' teams is my guess. Seems to have gone down well so far.

anonymous-user

84 months

Wednesday 8th June 2011
quotequote all
In the meantime a load of kids googleing cupcake instruction will be making bombs in home economics lessons getmecoat

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

256 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
davislove said:
ha ha - this excellence!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-i...

but something i've always wondered - cue IT boys and girls - how the hell do you 'hack' a system? whats the point of entry?
This is apparently quite common:



Shouldn't be, but it's how Sony recently got fked. Well, it's one of the ways in which Sony recently got fked. (Aside; Sony's recent security travails have cost the company $170 million. And it's rising, because it seems like it's every week I read about a different bit of Sony that gets bummed sans lube)

Even so-called Internet Security Experts get fked. This is a very interesting article about how HBGary got turned over by Anonymous.

Edited by CommanderJameson on Thursday 9th June 00:38

Silent1

19,762 posts

265 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
You'll get further social engineering than you will just cold hacking most times

silvagod

1,086 posts

190 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
Caulkhead said:
Have a read of the forums over at www.astalavista.com
My word, this brings back memories biggrin

WhoseGeneration

4,090 posts

237 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
Doesn't this show a failure by MI6?
Surely better would have been to provide a bomb "recipe" that blows up the "baker"?
Or, is this PC secret service work?
We are truly fked.

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

256 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
WhoseGeneration said:
Doesn't this show a failure by MI6?
Surely better would have been to provide a bomb "recipe" that blows up the "baker"?
Or, is this PC secret service work?
We are truly fked.
SRSLY?

WhoseGeneration

4,090 posts

237 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
CommanderJameson said:
SRSLY?
I don't understand this, why do you reference "A community coalition established to prevent destructive behaviour in Chelsea youth"?

TheEnd

15,370 posts

218 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
It put back an online magazine by two weeks, and even then, 2 weeks to re-upload the original is taking its time.

If this was the SOE, there would be a recipe for a harmless smokebomb or something an explosive with the power of gnat.

Mark.H

5,793 posts

236 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
Why cupcakes?

Why not tweak the original instructions slightly so they pop themselves during the making of the bomb? Now *that* would have been both highly amusing and rid us of a few wannabe terrorists (would probably have taken a while to spot).

As it is they'll just move their site elsewhere over a nice cup of tea and a cake.
Interesting point, why dont they flood whatever regions of the internet with fake websites from these fanatics with the type of info you described above?! Surely a few would bite and end up topping themselves in the process. It cant be so hard for someone with the right skills to make a site look like its from Terry-Wrist or whoever is running Al-Qal

anonymous-user

84 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
Mark.H said:
Murph7355 said:
Why cupcakes?

Why not tweak the original instructions slightly so they pop themselves during the making of the bomb? Now *that* would have been both highly amusing and rid us of a few wannabe terrorists (would probably have taken a while to spot).

As it is they'll just move their site elsewhere over a nice cup of tea and a cake.
Interesting point, why dont they flood whatever regions of the internet with fake websites from these fanatics with the type of info you described above?! Surely a few would bite and end up topping themselves in the process. It cant be so hard for someone with the right skills to make a site look like its from Terry-Wrist or whoever is running Al-Qal
Spamming out terry websites would provide a short term gain.
Watching terry websites provides short and long term gains.

MaximumJed

745 posts

262 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
Einion Yrth said:
Unless times have changed, most illicit system access is gained by weedling out username and password details from an authorised user by:- dumpster diving, or plausible conman questionning "drong dring... dring dring... Hello, this is IT support here, we've had a report of an issue with x.... can you let us have the username and password you were logged in with when it occurred.... " and so on. Boringly low tech really.
Or hang around near the office with a big box of Mars bars targeting the larger ladies:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/password_s...

Corsair7

20,911 posts

277 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
There are many system administrators that use seriously weak root passwords because they think they are 'clever'.....

I still know of a system where the password is 'letmein'.

Staff turnover is the biggest problem.

Systems where the root password is a one time use log on are better. A seperate stand alone system generates a new password every time. The beauty of this is the term 'stand alone'. As is under lock and key and no network connections......

loafer123

16,748 posts

245 months

Thursday 9th June 2011
quotequote all
Corsair7 said:
There are many system administrators that use seriously weak root passwords because they think they are 'clever'.....

I still know of a system where the password is 'letmein'.

Staff turnover is the biggest problem.

Systems where the root password is a one time use log on are better. A seperate stand alone system generates a new password every time. The beauty of this is the term 'stand alone'. As is under lock and key and no network connections......
I wanted to get at the data in a secured CD based SQL database once.

I got a free trial of an MSOffice password hacker, ran it and it said the password was...

kli****

Hmmm....let me think...IT geek...

klingon perhaps?

Oh, yes!