rjwhite@watmath.waterloo.edu (RJ White) (05/30/89)
On Sun may 28 near midnight, system 'looking' attempted to do a (uusend /etc/passwd /usr/spool/uucppublic/gu) and (uusend /etc/passwd guj) and system 'iros1' after trying various experiments in sending and receiving files, tried to get the passwd file from the above uusend's. Both of these attempts failed since we have disabled uusend for precisely the reason that we don't like people grabbing our passwd file for using passwd breaking programs on it. I suggest others do likewise. I assume that the system names 'looking' and 'iros1' were both forged. I know the people at looking, here in Waterloo. I think iros1 is in Ottawa or Montreal. -rj
brian@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM (Brian Onn) (05/30/89)
In article <26626@watmath.waterloo.edu> rjwhite@watmath.waterloo.edu (RJ White) writes: >On Sun may 28 near midnight, system 'looking' attempted to do a > (uusend /etc/passwd /usr/spool/uucppublic/gu) >and > (uusend /etc/passwd guj) > >and system 'iros1' after trying various experiments in sending and >receiving files, tried to get the passwd file from the above uusend's. >Both of these attempts failed since we have disabled uusend for precisely >the reason that we don't like people grabbing our passwd file for using >passwd breaking programs on it. I suggest others do likewise. > >I assume that the system names 'looking' and 'iros1' were both forged. >I know the people at looking, here in Waterloo. I think iros1 is in >Ottawa or Montreal. > -rj The question then becomes "How was someone able to determine the login/passwords on your system for both of those neighbor systems?". Was security breached on both of those systems (in order to get at L.sys/Systems files)? Or were the passwords simple enough to guess? What is the concensus on uucp passwords that Systems Administrators assign? I for one know that some passwords assigned to us from neighbours, and some that we assign to others are trivial to guess, and have often thought that more thought should be placed into this area. I have since begun to assign non trivial passwords to our newer connections. I've also toyed with the idea of requiring monthly password changes for uucp logins as well, but thought that this would be a pain in the butt to administer and organize properly. What do others think? Brian.