Army Web Server Attacked

Security experts say that the new Windows vulnerability revealed Monday by Microsoft Corp. has been used by crackers to attack at least one machine belonging to the U.S. Army. And, it turns out, the flaw used to attack the Web server was discovered not by Microsoft or an independent researcher, but by the attacker himself.

Experts at TruSecure Corp., based in Herndon, Va., received word of the attack on the Army's Web server last week through contacts within the Army. A Web server was attacked using a URL that was 4 kB in length, and the machine was subsequently compromised. The server then immediately began mapping the network around it, looking for other vulnerable machines and seeing what else of interest was within reach. It then started sending the results of its mapping to a remote machine through TCP port 3389 using terminal services, said Russ Cooper, surgeon general at TruSecure.

Once the Army security staff realized the server had been compromised, it took the machine off-line and rebuilt it. But as soon as it was re-connected to the Internet, the server was compromised again. At that point, the Army personnel realized they were dealing with something new and went to Microsoft's support site and filled out a Web form describing the issue. By the end of last week, Microsoft officials had produced a patch for the issue, which turned out to be a vulnerability in a Windows 2000 component used by IIS.

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