For my sins, I work as a System Admin for a reasonable size Department in large tertiary Institution (well, for now - but that's another story!).
One part of my job involves specifying and commissioning new servers and storage. Lately we have been using iSCSI storage servers attached to computational servers for the likes of geophysical and engineering applications such as high-rate GPS data processing. These servers are typically 8 core 48 megabyte machines and the storage attached them is measured in 10's of terabytes.
Normally, on receipt of a new machine the installed operating system is wiped, our preferred OS is put on it and it is run through our check procedures before it goes anywhere near our network. This time, I bought an appliance storage server - one controlled not from the command line, but from a web interface. Consequently, it wasn't wiped on arrival (and it had a 16 terabyte array on it that would have taken days to re-initialise). The upshot of the matter was that this appliance was not vetted as thoroughly as it should have been - I accept total blame for this, and can only plead advancing age and senility.
When the email from our security team arrived some 40 hours later to say that this machine was port scanning , I slapped my forehead, pulled the network cable and started a console session to confirm how stupid I had been.
The rootkit was, fortunately, not very smart. But you don't need to be smart when the box you infect has the root account activated with a password of 123456 - that I didn't change on arrival. The scripted login contacted a website in Rumania, downloaded a tarball, moved it into the /var/tmp directory, expanded it, then proceeded to run various commands designed to start ssh scanning sessions from this machine across the internet.
Careful checking on the contents of the rootkit and some careful monitoring of the rootkit in a virtual machine revealed that no modified binaries were installed, and the damage was limited to the ssh scanning sessions.
The machine is now on a private network, attached only to the computational server, with firewall rules to stop any errant ssh sessions - not that there has been any attempt to start any more.
The moral of the story is that any computer that is prepared for connection to the internet must be treated as if it could be infected from minute one.
Right, back to writing out 10000 times " I must change the root password on all new machines before attaching a network cable"
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Friday, 5 February 2010
A little colour in our lives
When I started work in the meat works (aka abattoirs aka slaughterhouse) as a meat inspector, I was 17 years old and wet behind the ears. I had led a very sheltered life in a low income middle class area of Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.
As you might imagine, the meat works was not a highly sought after place of work, so I was working among many eastern European migrants, and people from the poorer segments of Australian society. Please, don't get me wrong here - I did not think myself superior to any of them - just different - trust me, I was the odd one out.
Like most strange places, your survival depends on shutting up, listening and adapting. And by doing that, I found that many of these people were "characters" - not someones who would be welcomed into polite society, but perfectly at home where they were.
One such guy was Alf McGrotty, whom I had the dubious pleasure of working with at the Anglis meat works in Footscray. The mutton processing chain was a long distance from the main amenities block, so walking back and forward to get a cup of tea or go to the loo was time consuming. So the meat inspectors (of which I was one) had their own amenities close to the mutton chain. Now, remember , I am going back nearly 35 years when I relate these tales, and don't judge us too harshly. Alf was designated "cook" for the meat inspectors, and it was his job to serve up a full meal to the 6 inspectors working on the mutton chains - and I do mean a full meal - roast leg of lamb (or roast beef occasionally) with roast potatoes, pumpkin, peas, mashed potatoes, gravy and mint sauce. Not bad for a week day (every week day!). We all used to contribute a few dollars for the trimmings, but the meat came straight from the processing floor.
So, now you have the background, here a couple of "Alf" tales that show what type of character Alf was...
My first day on the mutton chain they put me on the lamb chain where Alf was supposed to be working (of course he was off preparing the veg for the meal). Now I was keeping up OK and everything was going along fine when Alf arrived at my side. Thankful for the breather, I slowed down a bit. Imagine my surprise when Alf grabs a lamb off the processing line, says "hold that!", giving it to me and then proceeded to cut the leg of the lamb, stuff it under his shirt and make his way rapidly back into the amenity room. There I was, standing with this mutilated lamb carcass, the rest of the lambs whizzing by, and my chin on the floor! I recovered as best I could, and enjoyed the lamb for lunch.
One time when there was a petrol strike on, the meat works allowed meat inspectors to purchase petrol from the on-site pumps at the price they paid for it - this was so they would not lose production if the the meat inspectors could not get in to work. As I had to travel across the city, I was very grateful and was careful to only use the petrol for work. However, one day when I went to fill up I was told that "there would be no more petrol for meat inspectors" - one inspector had been filling up his tank, going home, siphoning it off, and then filling up the next day. Likely this could have gone on for a while, but the stupid bugger started selling it at inflated prices to the rest of the workers in the meat works (who were not privileged enough to have the option to buy it!). Yep, you guessed it - Alf was that man.
Also at the Anglis meat works was a labourer known to me as "Millie" - well that's how everyone addressed him, so I did too. I was working on the beef cradles this particular day when I heard a foreman ask Millie:" Hey, Millie, when did you get your last fuck?". Quick as a flash Millie replied "You've got a short memory!" The foreman disappeared in a hurry to the sound of some very loud laughter...
So here I am, thirty-five years later, and I look around for a "character" or two to help me realise that world is not really deadly dull and grey, it just seems that way. And what do I find? Politicians with the charisma of a dead fish, overtly unfunny people in whom nasty passes for humour, workmates who are so scared of the PC police that they dare not utter anything that may be construed as "not PC", everybody in "head down, arse up" mode with no time for the lighter side of life, no "conspiracy theorists" to feed lines about "them" to, nobody wearing tinfoil hats, just no colour to be seen.
How sad.
So, I have decided that I will speak my mind, I will utter "not PC" thoughts as they occur to me, and not censor everything I think in case I offend someone.
I predict my life will be a little more colourful from now on.....
As you might imagine, the meat works was not a highly sought after place of work, so I was working among many eastern European migrants, and people from the poorer segments of Australian society. Please, don't get me wrong here - I did not think myself superior to any of them - just different - trust me, I was the odd one out.
Like most strange places, your survival depends on shutting up, listening and adapting. And by doing that, I found that many of these people were "characters" - not someones who would be welcomed into polite society, but perfectly at home where they were.
One such guy was Alf McGrotty, whom I had the dubious pleasure of working with at the Anglis meat works in Footscray. The mutton processing chain was a long distance from the main amenities block, so walking back and forward to get a cup of tea or go to the loo was time consuming. So the meat inspectors (of which I was one) had their own amenities close to the mutton chain. Now, remember , I am going back nearly 35 years when I relate these tales, and don't judge us too harshly. Alf was designated "cook" for the meat inspectors, and it was his job to serve up a full meal to the 6 inspectors working on the mutton chains - and I do mean a full meal - roast leg of lamb (or roast beef occasionally) with roast potatoes, pumpkin, peas, mashed potatoes, gravy and mint sauce. Not bad for a week day (every week day!). We all used to contribute a few dollars for the trimmings, but the meat came straight from the processing floor.
So, now you have the background, here a couple of "Alf" tales that show what type of character Alf was...
My first day on the mutton chain they put me on the lamb chain where Alf was supposed to be working (of course he was off preparing the veg for the meal). Now I was keeping up OK and everything was going along fine when Alf arrived at my side. Thankful for the breather, I slowed down a bit. Imagine my surprise when Alf grabs a lamb off the processing line, says "hold that!", giving it to me and then proceeded to cut the leg of the lamb, stuff it under his shirt and make his way rapidly back into the amenity room. There I was, standing with this mutilated lamb carcass, the rest of the lambs whizzing by, and my chin on the floor! I recovered as best I could, and enjoyed the lamb for lunch.
One time when there was a petrol strike on, the meat works allowed meat inspectors to purchase petrol from the on-site pumps at the price they paid for it - this was so they would not lose production if the the meat inspectors could not get in to work. As I had to travel across the city, I was very grateful and was careful to only use the petrol for work. However, one day when I went to fill up I was told that "there would be no more petrol for meat inspectors" - one inspector had been filling up his tank, going home, siphoning it off, and then filling up the next day. Likely this could have gone on for a while, but the stupid bugger started selling it at inflated prices to the rest of the workers in the meat works (who were not privileged enough to have the option to buy it!). Yep, you guessed it - Alf was that man.
Also at the Anglis meat works was a labourer known to me as "Millie" - well that's how everyone addressed him, so I did too. I was working on the beef cradles this particular day when I heard a foreman ask Millie:" Hey, Millie, when did you get your last fuck?". Quick as a flash Millie replied "You've got a short memory!" The foreman disappeared in a hurry to the sound of some very loud laughter...
So here I am, thirty-five years later, and I look around for a "character" or two to help me realise that world is not really deadly dull and grey, it just seems that way. And what do I find? Politicians with the charisma of a dead fish, overtly unfunny people in whom nasty passes for humour, workmates who are so scared of the PC police that they dare not utter anything that may be construed as "not PC", everybody in "head down, arse up" mode with no time for the lighter side of life, no "conspiracy theorists" to feed lines about "them" to, nobody wearing tinfoil hats, just no colour to be seen.
How sad.
So, I have decided that I will speak my mind, I will utter "not PC" thoughts as they occur to me, and not censor everything I think in case I offend someone.
I predict my life will be a little more colourful from now on.....
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