bugtraq - Major hack attack on the U.S. Senate

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Message-ID: <E1AjiZx-0001RQ-00@smtp03.mrf.mail.rcn.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 12:25:12 -0500
From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms@...puterbytesman.com>
To: "BUGTRAQ@...URITYFOCUS. COM" <BUGTRAQ@...URITYFOCUS.COM>
Subject: Major hack attack on the U.S. Senate

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_
seen_as_extensive?mode=PF

Infiltration of files seen as extensive
Senate panel's GOP staff pried on Democrats
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/22/2004

WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee
infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy
memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told
The Globe.

>From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP
committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access
restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through
hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of
private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight --
and with what tactics.

The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an
investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the
pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website
last November.

With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US
Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and
seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers,
one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of
Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives.

...