“Back Orifice 2000, a much anticipated and feared trojan
horse software program, was released today as expected at the
DefCon convention in Las Vegas.”
“A boisterous and supportive crowd of several hundred DefCon
attendees repeatedly roared their approval as the software’s
features were touted…”
“Debate has raged over whether BO2K (a pun on Microsoft’s Back
Office server suite) is a beneficial tool or a piece of software
that makes it easy for malicious hackers to gain unauthorized entry
to computers. The controversy is reminiscent of Dan Farmer’s 1995
release of SATAN, or Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing
Networks.
“The version released today represents an upgrade to the
original application Cult of the Dead Cow released at last year’s
DefCon, which has registered 300,000 downloads. BO2K is open-source
and accepts plug-ins, making it likely that malicious variants will
be created.”