FBI traitor suspect had mad C skillz

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/17128.html

By: Kevin Poulsen
Posted: 22/02/2001 at 20:27 GMT

The veteran FBI counterintelligence agent accused this week of spying
for Russia is a talented computer programmer who once penetrated a
senior agent's office computer to demonstrate the Bureau's
vulnerability to hackers, according to newspaper reports Thursday.

In 1992 or 1993 Robert Hanssen openly hacked into the office computer
of fellow agent Raymond Mislock, then section chief for
counterintelligence operations against Russia, according to a story in
Thursday's USA Today.

The paper, citing 'unnamed former senior intelligence officials',
reported that Hanssen didn't attempt to conceal the penetration, but
rather brought the computer's vulnerability to the attention of the
FBI, which immediately disconnected some systems housing classified
information.

Adding to the accused spy's growing technical bona fides, the
Washington Post reported Thursday that Hansen could program in C and
Pascal, and once created a system for automating the teletype at the
FBI's Washington field office.

Hanssen is accused of betraying some of the US intelligence
community's most closely-held secrets to the KGB, and its successor
agency the SVR, over a fifteen year period, in exchange for more than
$1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

A 100-page FBI affidavit in support of Hanssen's arrest, and a
subsequent search of his home, portrays an unusually computer-savvy
spy.

As early as November 1985, after making initial contact with the KGB,
Hanssen allegedly began trying to push his Russian handlers into using
more high-tech methods to communicate with him. He rejected the KGB's
first proposed communications scheme, suggesting instead that they
exchange encrypted messages over a computer bulletin board system
(BBS), the mid-eighties dial-up version of a modern Web board.

In 1991, Hanssen allegedly proposed another scheme, in which he'd
establish an office in Washington DC that would house a computer,
described vaguely in the FBI affidavit as "specially-equipped with
certain advanced technology" that would allow them to communicate
securely.

And last year, Hanssen allegedly tried to sell the Russians on using
handheld Palm VII organizers. According to the FBI affidavit, Hanssen
wrote his handlers, "we do need a better form of secure communication
-- faster."

"The VII version comes with wireless internet capability built in,"
Hanssen allegedly wrote. "It can allow the rapid transmission of
encrypted messages, which if used on an infrequent basis, could be
quite effective in preventing confusions if the existence [sic] of the
accounts could be appropriately hidden as well as the existance [sic]
of the devices themselves. Such a device might even serve for rapid
transmittal of substantial material in digital form."

The Russians evidently ignored Hanssen's geeky proposals. As detailed
in the FBI affidavit, the accused spy's tradecraft never got more
hi-tech then passing messages on floppy disks, encrypted with an
unspecified algorithm. Hanssen allegedly stashed the disks along with
reams of classified papers under two pedestrian bridges, and a wooden
podium, in public parks in the Washington DC area, where Russian case
officers would later pick them up.

Hanssen was arrested Sunday night at once such "dead drop" near his
residence in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Hanssen's technophilia may have helped his colleagues build a case
against him. According to the FBI affidavit, a covert search of
Hanssen's Palm III organizer prior to his arrest turned up a reminder
of the secret Sunday-night appointment.

A search of his office uncovered an 8MB Flash memory card with
incriminating copies of some of the notes he sent to, or received
from, Russian intelligence. And FBI computer logs showed that Hanssen
continuously ego-surfed the Bureau's Automated Case Support System
(ACS), performing incriminating searches on his own name, address, and
key words like "DEAD DROP AND WASHINGTON."

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