Comcast.net Hacked By High-School Dropouts

Comcast.net Hacked By High-School Dropouts

Friday, May 30, 2008 - by Daniel A. Begun
Move over Microsoft; Comcast is taking over the role as being perceived as the next "evil empire." Just ask hackers, Defiant and EBK, who managed to take over Comcast's Web portal for over five hours Wednesday night and into Thursday morning: 

Thursday, the pair were dealing with their newfound fame, laughing over the press coverage with a mix of glee and nervous excitement. Some reports have speculated that the hackers were retaliating for Comcast's recent sabotage of BitTorrent traffic; Defiant and EBK say that's false: they just hate Comcast in general. "I'm sure they hate us too," says Defiant.

"Comcast is just a huge corporation, and we wanted to take them out, and we did," he says.



The pair claim that through social engineering and exploiting a flaw with Comcast.net's domain management console at Network Solutions, they were able to redirect the DNS servers for Comcast.net to sites of their choosing, starting at about 11:00pm ET Wednesday night. In addition to taking over the Comcast.net site, the duo's actions also took down Comcast's webmail service as well. "Even when Comcast regained control, it took hours longer for the change to fully propagate through the DNS, leaving some customers without webmail access as late as 11:30 Thursday morning."

Defiant and EBK are members of a hacker group that calls itself Kryogeniks. Wired was able to get in touch with the pair through "Mike 'Virus' Neives, an 18-year-old New Yorker who pleaded guilty as a minor last year to hacking AOL. Neives, who was on the call, is also a member of Kryogeniks, though he and his compatriots say he's stopped hacking."

Both Defiant and EBK claim that while they could have tried to get access to personal user data, such as usernames and passwords, they chose not to. Comcast corroborated that that no personal information of its customers was compromised during the attack. On a more ominous note, the hackers claim that the flaw with domain registrar Network Solutions still exists, leaving plenty of other large sites just as susceptible to being similarly attacked. Network Solutions denies that such a flaw exists. If the pair don't wind up in jail or with their equipment impounded, we might just learn who is telling the truth. 
via: Wired | News Archive
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By Crisis Causer on May 30, 2008

I absolutety hate Comast.  I fully support these hackers.  Good for them.   If they need bail money I'm sure they could set up paypal donations and get a lot of money.  The amount of people turning against Comcast is steadily growing.

By Laggerzero on May 30, 2008

Yeah comcast does suck. I do find it entertaining when sites get taken down. I remember when the hacks at microsoft got real bad and they had to bring out some linux servers in order to keep the site up.

By Lev_Astov on May 30, 2008

As much as I usually loath the activities of hackers, regardless of the target (with the exception of the RIAA), I must admit I am pleased and impressed by their restraint in not pursuing personal data.

By nelsoncp21 on May 30, 2008

while i too hate comcasts and think what they did was somewhat just i also disagree with what they did on the grounds that it affects the customers who did nothing wrong. those who lost email access should not be penalized for comcasts bad business practices. Some people like myself have no choice but to use comcasts because fios is not available and dsl is to slow. the good thing is there was no major damage done and not personal info stolen.

By Crisis Causer on May 30, 2008

Speaking of hackers, I just watched the 1995 film Hackers a few hours ago.  Anyone seen that?  It's a bit absurd but enjoyable.

By nelsoncp21 on May 31, 2008

yep, i had seen it many times before but just watched it again on cable and realized how old it was.

Lines like this cracked me up

"it's got a killer refresh rate"

"it uses pci bus"

"it has a p6 chip faster then the pentium" 

"it has a 28kbps modem"

I was clueless about hardware years ago when I first seen this movie. Now I had to laugh at some of the stuff they said.

By miscpenguin on May 31, 2008

Judging from the people I know with the service, I'm guessing most of the customers are rooting for the hackers. Sometimes you've just got to stick it to the corporations. Cool

 Also, I need to see that movie, haha.

By SqUiD267 on May 31, 2008

 Haha Comcast is a great service, I think. I wish I had it over shitty Charter.

By amdcrankitup on May 31, 2008

 

FBI Hunts for Comcast Hackers

 

 

 

Defiant of Kryogeniks: We Warned Comcast First

Kryogeniks’ Defiant and EBK say it’s only a matter of time before the FBI catches up with them, speaking to Wired Threat Level in a Thursday phone interview.

The FBI is working hard to make good on the duo’s fears, and announced a joint investigation with the San Jose police department on Friday, to try and track down the culprits responsible for a Wednesday attack against Comcast’s subscriber portal.

Both Defiant and EBK are members of the hacking group Kryogeniks, who in the past was implicated in attacks against AOL and a number of celebrities. The duo said that their attack against Comcast began Tuesday, when they employed a combination of social engineering and an exploit in Network Solutions’ control panel to gain access to Comcast’s domain settings.

The pair said they made minor changes to Comcast’s DNS records before full Wednesday attack, which Comcast quickly reverted. When they attempted to reach Comcast’s technical contact afterwards, they described being told off and then hung up on.

"If he wasn't such a ***, he could have avoided all of that," said EBK. "I wasn't even really thinking. Plus, I'm just so mad at Comcast. I'm tired of their shitty service. Comcast is just a huge corporation, and we wanted to take them out, and we did," he said.

Defiant says that he was reluctant to attack Comcast, but once the hack was done, "it was, like, **** it."

Wired notes that the pair stayed up all night opening new webhosting accounts in order to accommodate the massive influx of Comcast subscribers attempting to visit the portal. In the end, said EBK, it took over 50 different hosts to keep the defacement running.

"You know how hard it is to find hosting handling that kind of traffic?" asked EBK. "The first one [went down] in two minutes."

Both hackers described getting little sleep Wednesday night, as the attack started at 11:00 P.M. and lasted until approximately 4 or 5 A.M.

Despite the duo’s expectation of impending doom, thus far the FBI has announced no arrests.

"I wish I was a minor right now," said the 19-year-old Defiant, "because this is going to be really bad."

 

By Crisis Causer on May 31, 2008

God speed, hackers. 

By amdcrankitup on May 31, 2008

Crisis Causer:

God speed, hackers. 

Yeah I need to hook up with one of them to do a total overhaul of my credit history!

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