Re: router damaged by cracker?

[John Fraizer <nanog () EnterZone Net>]

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Deepak Jain wrote:

> By the way that article reads, I would guess the attack was not
> exceptionally sophisticated. (Everyone's definition of sophisticated is
> different). 
>
> If one removed the config-reg (or renamed it) function on a small Cisco's
> firmware one could quite effectively change the passwords and make it
> difficult for a not very technical group of admins to take it back.
>
> Since there is talk about moving their main router behind a firewall, my
> guess is that they are using a routing appliance rather than any
> sophisticated routing hardware. The $18,000 replacement is probably for a
> different vendor, not because the hardware has lost function.
>
> This is all wild conjecture because I haven't seen any alerts from vendors
> in their normal channels. :)
>
> Deepak Jain
> AiNET

I would tend to agree.

> From the DenverPost:

"Eagle Network, which has an environmental bent, services 100 Web sites
and has 220 customers for its e-mail service, eagle-access.net."

I feel bad for these folks.  I don't know of many 25xx/26xx (guessing)
based providers who keep hot-spares on site but I'm fairly certain that
they could have obtained a temp-replacement router of nearly any make and
configuration for the cost of shipping during that timespan.


---
John Fraizer
EnterZone, Inc.