The Cuckoo's Egg (book) - Wikipedia
Clifford Stoll's 1989 book recounts tracing hacker Markus Hess, who sold stolen access to the KGB.
The Cuckoo's Egg is Clifford Stoll's 1989 account of a 75-cent accounting discrepancy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that led to hacker Markus Hess. Hess gained superuser access by exploiting GNU Emacs movemail, reused factory-default and guest credentials, copied password files for dictionary attacks, and planted Trojan horses while searching U.S. military systems for nuclear and SDI material. With Tymnet and the Deutsche Bundespost, Stoll traced the activity to Hanover; Hess had been selling results to the KGB, and Stoll later testified in West Germany.
- A 75-cent billing error exposed unauthorized LBNL use in 1986.
- Hess exploited GNU Emacs movemail to gain superuser access.
- He copied password files, guessed defaults, and searched military systems.
- German authorities traced him in Hanover; he sold material to the KGB.
- ATT&CK
- T1068 Exploitation for Privilege EscalationT1003 OS Credential DumpingT1110.002 Password CrackingT1078.001 Default Accounts
- Threat actors
- Markus HessKGB
- Organizations
- FBICIANSADeutsche Bundespost
- Countries
- United StatesGermanySoviet Union
From the original article
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This article is about the cybersecurity book by Clifford Stoll. For other uses, see Cuckoo's egg . The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage is a 1989 book written by Clifford Stoll .
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