Sniffing the Internet:
                        The Recent Rash of Breakins

                    9:00 a.m. Thursday, March 31, 1994
                           Plenary Presentation

  o  Rash of breakins
  o  February 3 CERT advisory and press release
  o  Boucher subcommittee hearing

  o  Barbara Fraser, CERT
  o  John Curran, NEARNET
  o  Steve Crocker, IETF Security Area Director


House Science Subcommittee

  o  Rick Boucher (D-VA) chair
  o  Oversight of budget for NIST, etc.
  o  Inquiry into recent Internet breakins
  o  Consequences for National Information Infrastructure


March 22, 1994 Hearing

  o  Dain Gary, CERT Director
  o  Tom Kubic, FBI Financial Crimes
  o  Vint Cerf, ISOC President
  o  Lyn McNulty, NIST
  o  Steve Crocker, IETF Security Area Director


The Hearing

  o  Congressional opening statements
     -  Four congressmen present
  o  Opening statements from witnesses
     -  Prepared written statements for the record
     -  Prepared oral statements limited to 5 minutes
  o  Questions and answers
     -  First round is from prepared set of questions
     -  A little bit of excitement after the first couple of rounds of
        questions
  o  Not clear what will follow


Highlights

  o  Boucher wants to give more money to CERT
     -  $2.4M (14 people) now; double next year?
  o  McNulty quizzed on status of Digital Signature Standard (DSS)
     -  Technical work done.  "In the hands of lawyers"
     -  Crocker:  Wrong.  Unneeded.  Give up.  Use RSA.
     -  McNulty:  Designed for signatures and not encryption.
     -  Cerf:  Sought camel; got camel.
  o  Clipper?
  o  Ehlers:  Technical security unlikely.  Increase the likelihood 
     of detection.


Primary Conclusions (mine)

  o  Cleartext passwords must die out
     -  Our (IETF) job is to move as quickly as possible to get past
        this problem.
     -  Doesn't solve all problems, but will dramatically reduce
        breakins.
  o  Understand CERT's role and procedures
     -  Timely distribution of information
     -  Role in creating and distributing fixes to security bugs
     -  WG in formation in OPS area w/co-chairs from incident
        handling and network operators
  o  If we feel strongly about use of cryptography, we should move 
     briskly.