1 Rev 5-3-31 Mount Ckpping in Space Below 5 11 EEFFIJEZLIRTI SEE E HEREIEEJ I3 DEER 693- newspaper Date 3 7 0 52 516 2 Character or hdicate page we Edition Final True Ll TNT 4535 3121 awash 5 Eric Pay 52 It city and state i Newgw eg lo 101% 034 - Make case i Ches ica on Submimno 0m cincinnati lndexing RUSSIAN HAGKERS MAY HAVE PULLED OFF WHAT COULD BE THE MOST DAMAGING BREACH EVER 0F GOMPUTER SECURITY BY GREGORY VISTI CA BEING CALLED Moonlight Maze an ap- propriately name for one of the mostpoten- tially damaging breaches of American computer security ever serious enough for the Departmentof Defense to or- der all of its civilian and mili- tary employees to change their computer passwords bylast month the rst time this pre caution has ever been taken en masse The suspects crack cy- berspooks fromthe Russian Academy of Scrences a government supported organization that inter acts with Russia s top military labs The tar- gets computer systems atthe Departments of Defense and Energy military contractors and leading civilian univer- sities The haul vast quantities of data that intelligence sources familiarwith the case tell NEWSWEEK couldinclude classi ed naval codes and in- formation on missile guid ance systems This was Penta- gon o icials say atly a state-sponsored Russian intel- ligence effortto get us tech- nologyLas faras is known the rstsuch attempt ever by Russia Washington has not yetprotested to Moscow But Deputy Secretary ofDefense John Hamre who has briefed congressional committees on the investigation has told col- NEWSWEEK SEPTEMBER 20 1999 Ill o mr wr leagues Were in the middle of a cyberwar In a erwar the offensive force picks the battle eld and the other side may not even realize when it s under attack Defense Department of cials believe the intrusions which they describe as sophisticat- ed patient andpersistent began at a low level of access inJanuary Security Sleuths spotted them almost immedi- ately and b ack hacked the source to computers in Rus- sia Soon though the attack- ers develop ed new tools that allowed them to enter undetected al- though they sometimes left electronic traces that could be recon- structed later Intelli- gence sources say the perpetrators even gained root level ac- cess to some systems a depth usually restricted to a few administrators Afterthat we re not certain where they went says GOP - Rep Curt Weldon who has held classi ed hearings on A MoonlightMaze As a federal interagency task force begins its damage assessment a key question is whether the Russians man aged to jump from the unclas- I si ed although non-public systems where they made their initial penetration into the classi ed Defense Depart- ment networkthat contains the most sensitive data Ad- ministration o icials insist the rewalls between the networks would have pre- vented any such intrusion but othersources aren t so sure Besides one intelligence o i- cial admitted classi ed data often lurk in unclassi ed databases With enough time and computer power the Rus sians could sift through their mountains ofpilfered infor- mation and deduce those se- crets they didn t directly steal That s one more thing to wor- ry about although security officials admit that they have a more pressing concern The intruders haven tbeen spot ted on the network since May 14 Have they given up their efforts or burrowed so deeply into the network thatthey can no longer eveh be tracedp amalgam HW- germ ff a M7 vim