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August 21, 2006 6:40 PM PDT
Kevin Mitnick Web site hacked
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Online vandals, apparently operating from Pakistan, broke into the computer hosting Mitnick's Web site on Sunday and replaced his front page with one of their own. As a result, four Web addresses belonging to Mitnick, including KevinMitnick.com and MitnickSecurity.com, displayed an explicit message on Mitnick and hacking.
"The Web hosting provider that hosts my sites was hacked," Mitnick told CNET News.com in an interview Monday. "Fortunately, I don't keep any confidential data on my Web site, so it wasn't that serious. Of course, it is embarrassing to be defaced--nobody likes it."
Mitnick's name is synonymous with "notorious hacker" for many. He was caught by the FBI in 1995 after a well-publicized pursuit and spent five years behind bars for wire and computer fraud. Today, he is a consultant, has written two books, and spends much of his time on the road at speaking engagements.
Mitnick heard out about the defacement on Sunday afternoon, shortly after the initial compromise, he said. The attackers gained complete control over the server that hosts his site as well as others at hosting provider Hostedhere, Mitnick said. It is common that hosting companies store multiple customers' Web sites on one server.
"The attackers from Pakistan took over that whole box. There were a whole bunch of customers, including myself, but my site was the only one defaced, so I was probably the target," Mitnick said. The server was taken offline to be reinstalled, Mitnick said. The Web site was still offline as of late Monday afternoon Pacific Time.
Web site defacements still occur, but they have become less high profile in recent years as financially motivated threats take the spotlight.
The message placed on Mitnick's Web site started with: "ZMOG!! THE MITNICK GOTZ OWNED!!" and continues with expletives and a picture of Mitnick with some modifications. Security Web site Zone-H first reported the hack on Monday and has screenshots of the replaced Web pages.
Defacing Web sites is akin to graffiti in the brick-and-mortar world. "It is kind of stupid; they do it for the attention," Mitnick said. "When I was a hacker, I never stooped to defacing sites because that was more like vandalism; that wasn't any fun. It is more about getting in and being stealth and looking around and exploring."
So far, Mitnick doesn't know how the server containing his Web site was compromised. He plans to investigate that at a later time. It could be that a security flaw on one of the other Web sites that was hosted on the same server gave the attackers a way into Mitnick's portion of the machine, he said.
"When you're with Web hosting companies, your security is as good as theirs. You just have to live with that," Mitnick said. "When you want to raise the bar, you have to set it up yourself. I don't have the time to maintain a Web site."
Hostedhere, Mitnick's hosting provider located in Greenville, S.C., did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
"They do a good job. I don't think they're insecure," Mitnick said, adding that he would switch Web hosting providers only if his site gets hacked continuously.
This isn't the first time that a Mitnick Web site has been defaced. Three years ago, a site set up by Mitnick's supporters was repeatedly hacked. Mitnick did not operate those sites. He was not allowed to use computers at that time as part of the terms of his supervised release from prison, he said.
See more CNET content tagged:
Kevin Mitnick, Web hosting company, hosting company, Web hosting, Pakistan
32 comments
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pretty funny too.
He did exploit software vulnerabilities as well.
you talk about attention seeking, but thats all you've done since you came out of jail.
there are bigger hackers around who are a lot more knowledged than you, that you have never heard of/ and never appear in public.
those guys are the real stealth and exploring folks, you're just going to be remembered in the underground as, the guy who got caught and milked your name for all its worth afterwards.
i've read your books, they don't talk about techniques that weren't already known about in the underground.
sure for academic folks you'll be giving them something they don't know about, but the homegrown hackers in the underground don't see you as anything special, apart from stupidly well known, because of media hype over the buzzwords "hacker", "fbi", "caught", "released", ""book"... thanks.
as for the defacement of your web site, its pretty funny that while you claim it wasn't your fault and your hosting company was insecure.
surely such a good hacker come security consultant would have picked a good company to host your website, since you're a *cough* expert and know which companies offer the best hosting in terms of security.
you can't scape goat all the blame towards others... and you say there was no sensitive information stored on your account, well they weren't looking for sensitive information were they? as far as the attackers are concerned, they hacked your web site in the knowledge they wanted to deface your site, and thats what they done. they didn't go damn, theres no sensitive infomration here, we'll just go for second best. no they went into the server with the intention to deface it, and thats exactly what they did... mission completed.
and you say being stealth looking around and exploring, but thats exactly what your attackers did. yes they left a defacement, but they still looked around and explored, and as far as i know, they haven't been caught, so it looks like they were stealth too.
enjoy milking out the rest of your post jail career...
i speak to mark seiden everyday, i believe you know each other ;)
peace
Kevin said he didn't have time to administer his own website, so why host out your firm to a third party server that could find itself in this embarrassing position?
Sorry, just an observational note as I thought hackers where supposed to stay on top of their game and why do people always whine and ***** about security after the event. If they took reasonable precautions before the event and stayed on top of the game, then surely they wouldn't find themselves getting pwned it would be the other way around!
Although I don't know anything about n3td3v, his post does sound more to me like a pointless rant from a jealous under-achiever... The kind of thing Robin would say to Batman (if you'll excuse the analogy).
n3td3v, you seem to be missing a crucial point, and I recommend you go back and read the article again.
Kevin said "When you're with Web hosting companies, your security is as good as theirs. You just have to live with that," and then followed on saying "They do a good job. I don't think they're insecure,"
Even professionals in the area of IT security like him have standards as to what they believe "secure" to be. And if he believes that the box where his site is hosted is secure then (even if it isn't) is his issue to worry about. As for his so-called fame, name one other hacker that is as well known as him, or got given a worse sentence when they got caught. I know of only one, but the name escapes me right now.
If, at the moment, you're thinking that being well known isn't the point, I have to say I agree with you, but think about that cracker that's going to break into the Pentagon's systems one day, who is he going to tell? He'll sit for the remainder of his life keeping that secret to himself because a) he'd be a fool to tell anyone, and b) if he is stupid enough to tell someone, they'll never believe him.
Kevin Mitnick was arrested by the FBI and sentenced to 5 years in prison. He can go out and (should he choose to) tell the world "look at me, check what I did... I am the ****!!" and everyone's going to believe him for the simple fact that he got arrested for it. Stealth is all well and good, but at the end of the day, what indeed, is the point?
Forget for a minute that defacing a website is pretty juvenile, being able to go onto Enet and say "I defaced the great Kevin Mitnick's website. He's supposed to be this security expert and I got through" could get script kiddies a decent amount of notoriety... Especially if they got in through a hole in another website's security...
Oh well, charge away Kevin! Hoover those gullible fear dollars.
It only goes to show that even hackers can be hacked.
Kevin is just as human as you and I... even though he's much more aware of hacking than many, one slip up, one miss, one guard let down and even hackers can be hacked.
Bottom Line: He's human and there is no such thing as an totally unhackable system! Combined they only create a double-weakness!
Walt
For all of you guys who would like a little education into IT Security and insight into how the minds of black-hat hackers work, I recommend you get a copy of Hacking for Dummies...
Needless to say with such weak security being demonstrated by sites across the globe connected 24/7 to an online environment filled with Script Kiddies and hardened criminal hackers.
Where do people seriously think all the Spam & Virus problems are coming from?
It's coming from their own servers because they're too lazy to do something about it beforehand!
We're talking good security practices here, its not rocket science, the only people that should be allowed remote access, into machines should be people that have sat through a security briefing about why they will be given passwords that look: LiK3th15ssHd not passwords that: looklikethis
People just ignore good security practices and then worry about them after they find a breach, that is just unacceptable, because once you have hackers in, you may find its very hard to get the hackers out!