Hacked systems and the law

[Dustin Decker]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, Bradley Miller wrote:

> > > Now why is it people are more worked up over spam than "intruders"?
> >
> >Becasue spam causes real losses and damage, and affects all of us every day,
> >while one inadequately secured system getting 'owned' is pretty dull stuff.
> 
> Ok -- so you can quantify the real loss from getting spam?  So your users 
> have to use the delete key?  How can you count spam deleting time as a 
> loss, but the time that it takes to clean up this fiasco on my part isn't a 
> loss?

Take the situation out of your current "I'm pissed of because I got 
hacked" box and examine it for what it is.  If I have a ton of SPAM on my 
mail server, it's wasting valuable (albeit cheapening) disk real estate.  
My users have to "think" for a moment before they hit the delete key, 
which takes a bit of time.  Multiply that time by a few thousand users... 
and you're wasting perhaps one or two 8-hour business days per day in 
human resourses.

Them move on to Sally User who receives an e-mail that suggests the needs 
a bigger penis - or bigger boobs.  The moral issue is one thing, but the 
legal is an even bigger thing.  It's theoretically possible that she may 
sue her employer for allowing this stuff to reach her in the first place - 
so we spend more time and resourses to combat it.  And God forbid Sally 
receives an actual PHOTO of that larger penis - game over man!

Dude - you've been hacked. 

<Willy Clinton>I feel your pain.</Willy Clinton>

If you do this long enough, I ASSURE you, and would bet dimes to
dollars IT WON'T BE THE LAST TIME.  There are MILLIONS of vulnerable hosts
out there on the big scarey Internet on any given Sunday.  There aren't
enough lawyers or bullets to deal with the problem in the fashion you
would like to see happen, especially when you have to consider it takes 
just a few milliseconds to search for and compromise these systems by the 
thousands.  Wanna spend the rest of your life in court?  Have fun dude.   

You haven't even taken this to the possible logical conclusion either -
it's EXTREMELY likely that the host on the ISP you're pissed off about has
indeed been hacked as well.  You're upset at not getting help from someone
who is likely in the same boat you are.  It is quite common to use one 
hacked system to attack and hack others...  and finding the _REAL_ culprit 
can be logistically impossible if you have to trace it back through 14 
different hosts across 34 state lines and well into 43 different 
countries.

Redirect all that pent up anger and frustration - turn it into an
experience you will learn from, get some kung-foo points in security, and
shore up your systems.  Do what I do... Go down to the bullet-hole on
Shawnee Mission Parkway and squeeze off a couple boxes of .40 or what have 
you.  Then go home, take a shower, and settle in for a long night of 
securing your systems, and your code.
D.

-- 
o-----------------------------------o
| Dustin Decker - CNA, MCP          |
| dustin at dustindecker.com       o-------------------------------------o
| Network Engineer              | "One Architecture, One OS" also     |
| Preferred Physicians Group    |  translates as "One Egg,            |
o-------------------------------|  One Basket."                       |
                                o-------------------------------------o