Y2K - Hackers, Crackers and Jewelry Heists

Alan Simpson

Tony Curtis, in the movie "Operation Petticoat" uses the great line "In confusion there is profit", explaining to his sidekick that during a Japanese bombing raid is the best time to steal the supplies they need.

The same logic can be applied to the confusion that will accompany the year 2000 rollover. There is a good chance that some alarm systems will have problems and cause a false alarm. There is a good chance that many alarms will be blamed on Y2K. Operators are expecting confusion, and have been bombarded with predictions of Y2K failures. Will the monitoring panels in New York, and other major urban areas resemble a Christmas tree, with flashing warning lights everywhere?

Well, it’s probably the best period ever to plan a robbery, and this is not telling the criminals anything they do not already know! If there are power failures, the professional criminal knows the length of time a back-up battery will last in an alarm system. He knows that the normal pattern of surveillance will be broken during the holidays, and he has learned of the massive confusion surrounding Y2K.

Is it an alarm, or is it Y2K?

Expand the scenario further. If an alarm indicates a problem with a vault, and a possible breach, the appropriate key holder will be summoned, assuming the telephones are fully functional, and examination of the premises undertaken, along with a suitable number of the city’s finest, with weapons drawn. Consider the logistical problems if a large number of false alarms occur. Consider the outcome if the vault time locks, security system or electronic keys fail to respond to verification. Is the system Y2K compliant? Is it a software problem or has Vinnie "The Torch" welded up the door from the inside, and is emptying the safe deposit boxes, along with Luigi "The Mole", before disappearing down the tunnel into the adjacent Dry Cleaners.

Try this in normal times and you are asking for a long vacation in a choice of Federal or State establishment. The probability of success amid enough confusion is high enough for many criminals to try it.

Thieves have been around since the dawn of civilization, and the world knows what they will try. The associated countermeasures are known to even the most junior security advisor.

The Hackers and Crackers are a different story. A phenomenon of the last decade, these computer mavericks can be irritating, or devastating.

The more governments turn their computer installations into fortresses, the more attractive a target they become. The only discouragement is the possibility of being traced, and caught. It is the ultimate in surgical warfare, the ability to bring down a mighty, powerful enemy, from a PC in the spare bedroom!

In an age where military spokesmen gloat over the ability to send a missile into a ventilation duct, these cyberwarriors, or cyberterrorists, depending on your point of view, can wreak havoc. They have found the Achilles Heel of a modern Information based society. Over thousands of years we have developed countermeasures to protect valuable intrinsic assets, and we are all familiar with their use. Few understand CyberAttacks, or IT Warfare as it has become to be known.

Under normal circumstances these attacks will trigger alarms, as an abnormal state of traffic is detected. But consider the scenario where the abnormal state, has become the normal state, due to Y2K. Consider the confusion, even controlled panic during the rollover. It is not only the professionals that will be accessing the system.

Human curiosity being what it is, many will make phone calls, send emails, access their mainframes or "Rubber Neck" the Internet at the stroke of midnight, just to see if the projections of the Doomsayers were right. It is the 1983 "War Games" scenario all over again, "Are you still there? Is anyone able to speak? Is the network still operating?"

The worst possible scenario!

It is almost certain that every security program will have a nervous breakdown at the abnormal state of communications traffic.

Amid this confusion there is enormous latitude for mischief.

If this mischief was only driven by a curiosity to see if security could be breached, or if the FBI could be crashed once again, then the threat would be minor. But with Y2K we have a whole new dimension, almost a holy war being fought in cyberspace.

The crescendo of the TEOTWAWKI movement has been growing, fuelled by religious zealots, and survivalist passions of a large group of dissatisfied individuals. Many have a vested interest in seeing complete confusion, if not complete collapse of the complex communication system, even of the critical infrastructure. The threat is not from the Middle East, nor South East Asia. The threat is from bored, dissatisfied computer geeks in middle-class America, who have been promised everything during their formulate years, and now see the harsh reality of the world. They are already planning malice.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies identified 140 Y2K viruses, ready to explode at midnight on 12/31/99. Most are silly little graphics programs that create fireworks, and say Happy New Year, similar to Happy99.exe, but some are very malicious, and some attack the critical infrastructure.

It is these potentially devastating viruses that are of the most concern. In times past it was an enemy at war that wanted to see the critical infrastructure of a country destroyed. Today we see educated citizens of a country, not at war, wanting to wreak havoc on their own country, for personal vendettas, or worse still just to see what damage they can achieve. Power crazy! But do not look at this in isolation. The threat has to be painted against the background of the "Doomsayer" cult.

 

Year 2000 "Doomsayers" have staked their professional reputations on seeing complete chaos precipitated, and the world, especially the USA, plunged into an "IT Winter" for which their followers have been preparing. The more positive information that is available, the more extreme their predictions. They do not believe that power and telecommunications will be available. They predict the collapse of critical infrastructure.

Y2K will stretch the limits of the infrastructure managers, committed to keeping power and telecommunications operating. Although statistically most software has been declared "Y2K ready", there is always the unknown glitches, missed during remediation. These managers have enough on their plate without the added concern of malicious viruses. Not only viruses, but unauthorized accesses, some with disruptive or malicious intents.

Some will try and convince everyone that their unauthorized intrusions are just for fun, a simple sporting game.

The "Hackers" consider themselves a world apart from the "Crackers" . They consider they provide a service to software developers, in locating and exposing flaws in operating systems, software and networks. Well, come 12/31/99 we know the network is flawed, and we know the code is, or was broken, incomplete, corrupt and out-of-date. The services of the benevolent hacking community are not needed over the millennium period, they should take a break, and enjoy the celebrations.

This leaves the networks for the criminals, and the criminals alone. For those who missed the point, anyone caught hacking over the period of national and international IT emergency is by definition, a criminal, i.e. a Cracker! No excuses about showing the world how insecure, and flawed are Microsoft products!

But they have a point, as regards how insecure most networks have become, especially those connected to the Internet.

Looking back at World War II, and the German code machine we knew as the "Enigma". Fable has it that the code was broken by faceless hard-working scientists, toiling behind a wall of secrecy in Bletchley Park, England. Truth is they would still be toiling today, had it not been for breaches of German security, good old theft and lucky breaks, caused by human error. The same applies today with Y2K. No Hacker will attempt to storm the front door of a Firewall, manned by highly trained, experienced IT security professionals. He will look for those breaches of security, and communications protocol, the same that allowed access to Enigma, sixty years ago.

The number of companies which go to great lengths to protect their IT systems with sophisticated security software and firewalls, yet allow the new yuppie junior executive to have a direct modem on his network PC, so he can play with his laptop from his hotel room. Why not also issue a list of non-secure numbers to make the Hackers job easier, and stop annoying wrong-numbers.

Come December 1999 ALL, repeat ALL non essential connections should be disconnected!! The yuppie junior executive can send a card to his college room-mate, instead of an e-mail.

Of course, as in WWII there is still good old theft. How many people will give away passwords, account information, file names or numbers, in response to a telephone call from the "Y2K team". Hey if Peter Jennings, and the news programs say it has the potential of being a major disaster, most staff will go to great lengths to "do their bit". Unfortunately the unscrupulous and malicious will exploit this for their own gain.

Which brings us back to Jewelry heists!

The petty criminal works best with confusion, the confidence trickster works best with confusion, coupled with a desire of the gullible public, to help someone in need. Already we are seeing people losing their savings on Y2K investment scams. Some people are also spending large sums of money to protect their families against the predicted "12 months without power or telephones" . Conspiracy theories abound. Army Surplus Stores are selling guns, ammunition, and survival rations, like never before, quoting the announcements that official "Y2K Bunkers" are being set up to monitor events. The public is confused, worried and deeply suspicious of statements from government, and big business. It is becoming a potentially lucrative feeding ground for crime.

But consider this, we know the exact time, and place of the probable attack.

Someone can physically check the alarm circuits at midnight. Someone can physically check the vault. Someone can earn those big bucks the banks, and companies pay top executives, and celebrate the New Year, at work.

Corporations can isolate non-essential network PC’s over the New Year, can prohibit anything but essential traffic on the system, until it is stabilized, and fire all those yuppie junior execs who know better, and bypass the security precautions.

It may be prudent to pull down all non-essential web sites till after the New Year return to work. Nobody really needs the FBI web site, the Pentagon or other targets during a holiday period. Father Christmas, Champagne, celebrations and J. Edgar Hoover do not usually appear together in the same sentence.

Not being able to see the White House web site crumble into submission, and be reported on the evening news, takes out all the glory of hacking. If nobody knows you were there you become a real spy, and part of the establishment! There is no fun, or kudos in that.

Tunneling into the vault at midnight and finding four burly security guards, with loaded pump-shotguns smiling at you, really screws up your New Years Day plans. The same applies to being dragged away by the city’s finest, muttering "How did they know I would hit it tonight?"

You can rest assured one thing, there will be a adequate supply of Ambulance Chasers

from the legal profession available on hand to bail out their new clients, on this the start of a New Millennium, "a day for my client’s celebration, not incarceration."

We can only say that given the overwhelming evidence available, the millennium rollover looks like being successful, with only minor, if any glitches. Then we enter a period where unknown events, may occur, where missed glitches may occur, or where unknown occurrences may occur as isolated, or cascading failures, that probably will be quickly fixed.

So at midnight on December 31^st, 1999 "make the ship secure, and watertight" seems a simple task, by comparison.

Be safe, secure and think ahead!

© August 1999, Alan Simpson, All Rights Reserved