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From: gcm@mtgzz.UUCP (XMRP20000[khw]-g.c.mccoury)
Newsgroups: misc.headlines,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms
Subject: Hacker hits VMS
Message-ID: <3749@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 88 22:26:43 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Lines: 63
Keywords: DEC, Chaos Computer Club

From The Star-Ledger(Newark NJ) 3/17/88

		TEEN HACKER 'INVADES' NEW SECURE COMPUTER 

	PARIS(Reuters)- A 19-year-old West German hacker has succeeded
	in breaking into one of the world's top-selling computers,
	Digital Equipment Corp.'s VAX system, in what experts say is a
	new blow to confidence in computer security.
	    Computer specialists broke the news yesterday at a computer
	conference already shocked by the arrest on Sunday of West
	German hacker Steffen Wernery, 26, as he arrived to take part
	in a panel debate on system security.
	    Wernery is a member of the Hamburg-based Chaos Computer
	Club which caused a storm last year when it revealed it had
	penetrated more than 100 computers around the world, including
	the network of the U.S. space agency NASA.
	    French police announced later that Wernery had been charged
	with "theft, destruction and damaging computer goods" and had
	been jailed pending trial.
	    West German journalist and computer expert Hans Gliss, who
 	was also held briefly by French police when he arrived in Paris
	on Sunday, said the unidentified 19-year-old from Munich had 
	worked out how to enter VAX computers made by Digital.
	    Gliss said the Munich hacker had breached the VAX system by
	using material openly available from Digital, which is based in
	Maynard, Mass.
	    Digital executives were in a meeting and not available for
	comment, a spokeswoman said.
	    Rudiger Dierstein, of West Germany's national space foundation
	DFVLR, said the consequences of the Munich hacker's achievement
	were "terrifying."
	    "This person has given a full description of how to gain access
	to the system and gain full control. Imagine combining the
	intelligence of this hacker with a definite criminal intention,"
	he said.
	    "Someone could take control of a satellite as they are all
	computer-controlled. That is why I tremble when I hear the initials
	SDI."  
	    SDI stands for President Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense
	Initiative, a space-based computer-guided defense system against
	nuclear missile attack. 
	    Dierstein said the 19-year-old had privately published his work
	in a pamphlet entitled "Hints on the Use of the VMS Operating System" 
	but police had confiscated all the documents.
	    The VMS(Virtual Memory System) is the main language used in
	Digital's VAX computers.
	    Experts said other major computer manufacturers like IBM could
	not afford to be complacent as it was being shown their systems 
	were equally vulnerable.
	    Companies targeted by Chaos Computer Club "hackers" were unaware
	their systems had been tampered with until the club informed West
	German authorities.
	    Experts at the Paris conference said Wernery had fixed a meeting
	with the French subsidiary of the Phillips electronic group - one  
	of the companies penetrated by the hackers - before leaving for France.

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