RE: login banners

[PJD () portcullis-security com]

Hi Patrick

The story you refer to also rung a bell (no pun intended) I think it was
with regards to British Telecom, who if memory serves, had a contractor
working for them who had access to systems on the network, he looked around
at what else was available to him, and found he had access to the
ex-directory phone list including numbers such as the UK's security
services, the private numbers for Buckingham Palace and many others. He
published his findings to the press, see an article in Computer Weekly 01
Dec 1994 page 14. BT prosecuted him, but he got off on the basis that the
data was on the system he had access to and there was no notification that
he should not access it unless specifically authorised. I am not a legal
authority, but I guess you could call that a precedent, I believe he still
got prosecuted for disclosing the data under the data protection act though.
Following that authorised login banners were born.

Hope this helps.

Paul

 

> ----------
> From:         Patrick Kingi[SMTP:Patrick.Kingi () nz logical com]
> Sent:         18 February 2003 00:55
> To:   pen-test () securityfocus com
> Subject:      login banners
>
> Greetings all,
>
> It has been standard practice to ensure systems ensure their login banners
> warn the users that unauthorised access is not allowed, your activity may
> be
> logged etc...
>
> A client has asked if there is any evidence that this really matters. I
> heard a story once upon a time that a hacker did not get prosecuted
> because
> the login banner said something like "Welcome to your friendly
> neighborhood
> computer". Is this an urban legend?
>
> Does anyone have any evidence that the login banner has been used in
> court?
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> regards,
> Patrick
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
>
> Do you know the base address of the Global Offset Table (GOT) on a Solaris
> 8
> box?
> CORE IMPACT does.
> www.securityfocus.com/core


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Do you know the base address of the Global Offset Table (GOT) on a Solaris 8
box?
CORE IMPACT does.
http://www.securityfocus.com/core