Hackers wage own war

2003-03-25 08:53

Washington - Hacker attacks have spiked in response to the US military action against Iraq, disrupting many websites operated by businesses, government and the military, a US government report said on Monday.

"The start of the military campaign against Iraq triggered a wave of digital attacks," said a report by State Department analysts distributed to multinational companies.

"These digital attacks are causing business disruptions through online vandalism of commerce portals and computers belonging to businesses. Government and military systems are also being targeted but in smaller numbers."

The report alluded to pro- and anti-US hackers, saying that this was not an organised effort "but rather independent hackers who want to get their message across."

Increased hacking activity

"Sources that watch the hacker community closely report about 2 500 defacements occur per day since Friday," the report said.

"Sites related to the American military have, as expected, been subject to attack. But the increased hacking activity is in no way limited to the nations directly involved in the war."

The report said the attacks appear to be originating from Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, Brazil, and Mexico as well as some countries in Eastern Europe.

"The different alignments include pro-Islamic sentiment, anti-US/UK/Israel feeling, anti-capitalist protest, humanitarian and environmental concern," the document said.

"The economic impact of anti-war digital attacks is taking a toll on businesses through customer service interruption (denial of service), malicious e-mails and viruses, data and credit card piracy, identity theft and loss of reputation."

Last month, US authorities warned against so-called "patriotic" hacking while cautioning about an expected rise in "illegal cyberactivity," such as "spamming, web defacements, denial of service attacks" and other similar activity."

The government report coincided with a number of similar statements from private firms that monitor hacker attacks and viruses.

The internet security firm F-secure said it believes the number of attacks are far greater than those reported to authorities, since many firms are reluctant to report an attack or may be slow to do so.

Three main camps

"Almost 10 000 defacements have been reported or confirmed during the past week and it is clear that the actual number is much higher," F-Secure said in a statement.

"The number of reports and confirmed defacements do however clearly show that the hacking activity has increased significantly."

F-Secure said the hackers fall into three main camps:

US-based patriotic hackers, who want to join the war against Iraq but have no others means to do so, and may be targeting Iraqi sites.

Islamic extremist groups launching attacks against US sites, especially those of the military.

Peace activists who are not for either side but are trying to use get across an anti-war message.

F-Secure said one hacker group claimed to have successfully defaced the White House website. But it said the site "was apparently restored very quickly and independent observers were not able to confirm this defacement."

- AFX