SOCA's XP hack hit Microsoft
Microsoft has described the ease with which two officers from the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency managed to hack into Windows XP as both “enlightening and frightening”.
At a Get Safe Online event on Monday aimed at heightening security awareness among small businesses, officers connected a machine running Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) to an unsecured wireless network. The machine was running no antivirus, firewall, or anti-spyware, and contained a sample target file of passwords to be stolen.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) officers, who are e-crime specialists, wished to remain anonymous. A SOCA spokesperson explained that to make covert operations easier “all SOCA officers below a certain level are anonymous, as it is not helpful to have our identities known”.
One of the officers, “Mick”, remained behind a screen while connecting to the unsecured wireless network and carrying out the hack into the unpatched computer of fellow officer “Andy”.