Contractor admits hackers stole U.S. satellite software

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http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5006606.html?tag=mn_hd

By Robert Lemos
Special to CNET News.com
March 2, 2001, 4:15 p.m. PT

Update: Exigent International, a U.S. government contractor,
acknowledged Friday that one or more cyberthieves broke into a
restricted federal computer system and stole the company's proprietary
code for controlling satellite systems.

The theft, which took place in December, became public Friday after it
became known that law enforcement had searched the servers of a
Swedish software consulting company for evidence of the crime.

"Because one of our government customers was a target of this
cybercrime, we are working closely with them, as well as domestic law
enforcement and international organizations to remedy the breach in
security," B.R. Smedley, CEO of Exigent, said in a statement.

Exigent's software, known as OS/COMET, allows ground-control personnel
to communicate and send commands to satellites and rockets. The
Melbourne, Fla.-based company stated that the source code of the
version that had been stolen was "older," not the newest version
released last April.

Swedish law enforcement searched the servers of software consultant
Carbonide on Feb. 6 on suspicion that a hacker used the company's
Freebox Web e-mail service to distribute the source code to others,
said Erik Wickbom, CEO of Stockholm, Sweden-based Carbonide.

"We didn't know it was there, and we didn't know it was source code,"
he told CNET News.com on Friday. Although the search occurred nearly a
month ago, it did not become public until Friday.

After the four-hour search, the team of Swedish law enforcement and
FBI computer experts left with copies of the evidence.

"Immediately after, we deleted the source code," Wickbom said.

The stolen source code is a fragment of the complete application.
Wickbom said that's because law enforcement officials could fit the
data on a single floppy disk, about 1.44MB of space.

Although the hacker used the name "Leeif" on the system, Wickbom said,
the account was stolen. Wickbom added that the trail points to a
German university as the source of the intrusion into the Freebox
network but that a skilled attacker could easily have broken in from
elsewhere.

"He knew what he was doing, absolutely," Wickbom said.

Wickbom did not name the German school, but Exigent filed a suit
against both Carbonide and the University of Kaiserlautern in Germany
on Jan. 19 in connection with the case.

The U.S. Air Force has plans to use the OS/COMET software to control
the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System from its Colorado Springs
Monitor Station, which is part of the Air Force Space Command,
according to a December press release from the software's creator,
Exigent Software Technology, a subsidiary of Exigent International.
Exigent valued the deal at $2.7 million.

Although Exigent did not name the government customer, a Reuters
report indicated that the source code had been stolen from the U.S.
Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 24. The
military detected the intrusion three days later.

In reaction to the theft, Exigent said, it requested that the
government system run a "lock-up" procedure.

The FBI would not comment on the theft or the investigation

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