DC Phone Home

Architecture and Background

Aaron Higbee & Chris Davis- DC Phone Home DC Phone Home (DreamCast Phone Home, a pun on the well-known film ET: The Extraterrestrial) is a project that challenges conventional enterprise security models by showing the ease by which an attack to an organization's network resources and infrastructure can be performed from an internal perspective. Simply put, once the DreamCast is deployed, it 'phones home' joining an organization's internal network with a remote network. We show that this type of attack can be performed easily with a variety of available hardware and software and in such a way that is not easily discovered by an organization's employees or security resources. Our presentation will include development descriptions and demonstrations of the attack tools that we have developed and are continuing to develop.

Vulnerability Analysis

The attack tools are comprised of a SEGA Dreamcast, a Compaq iPAQ handheld device, and a bootable x86 CD-ROM which can perform the attack using any available PC. Using open-source tools that we have ported to these platforms, we have created devices that 'phones home' over known protocols. Aaron Higbee has been working in information security for the past 4 years, getting his start at Earthlink Network as a Network Abuse Administrator. In this position, Aaron became intimately acquainted with the tactics of spammers, hackers, and every kind of network abuse imaginable.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Later, while working as RoadRunner's Senior Security Administrator, Aaron learned and responded to the network abuse problems that plague broadband connections. Working at two national service providers, Aaron was able to become an expert in the tactics of hackers and the mistakes that get them caught. This experience made his transition from incident response to penetration testing a natural one. Currently, Aaron works for Foundstone Inc.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

as a security consultant. Chris Davis has been working in the field of information technology for 8 years, with a concentration on information security for the past 4 years. He has participated in secure systems development, information security consulting, penetration testing and vulnerability assessments, and information security R&D. He is a contributing author to Newrider's recent publication Building Linux Virtual Private Networks(VPN) and continues to write and publish various papers. He has developed and instructed a number of courses, the most recent of which was a 3-month course on software vulnerability discovery and exploit coding. Currently, Chris is a Senior Security Consultant for RedSiren.