In today’s #WayBackWednesday, our 8-bit history lesson focuses on war-dialing.
In the 1970s and 1980s, computers became more commonly available for remote connection via modems. To connect remotely, all user needed was to have their own modem connected to their phone line and then have it dial the number of the remote computer’s modem. The remote modem would answer, and then the two computers could communicate. Authentication via password was rare. Multi-factor authentication was non-existent.
There was no phone book for these modem-connected computers. But, that did not stop curious enthusiasts who wanted to find and communicate with these computers. To do this, they developed a technique called “war-dialing”. This was a process where a computer would make calls to a range of phone numbers – one call after another. If the call was answered by a modem, the number was logged for further investigation. Early hackers could explore these positive connections for information after the war-dialing routine had ended.
This underlying approach of war-driving is similar to modern-day fuzzing techniques where testers try to find weaknesses in systems. They do this by sending messages to the target system and then observing the system behavior. If the message causes the system to crash, the message is logged so that could be explored further. Check out this classic and clever fuzzing example in Andrey Konovalov‘s BSides Munich 2022 talk, “Fuzzing USB with RawGadget“, https://www.youtube.com/live/OVbzlN3evzo?feature=shared
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BSidesMunich 8-Bit :: Forged by HI