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[FYI] (Fwd) [GILC-plan] BBC: Anti-war hacking rises sharply



------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Wed, 26 Mar 2003 14:17:30 -0800
From:           	Margarita Lacabe <marga@derechos.org>
To:             	gilc-plan@mailman.gilc.org
Subject:        	[GILC-plan] BBC: Anti-war hacking rises sharply

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Anti-war hacking rises sharply

More than 20,000 websites have been hacked since the war on Iraq began
according to one security firm.

UK security firm F-Secure has seen a dramatic rise in the number of
hack attacks since the conflict started last week.

In the first few days of the conflict there was a flurry of attempts
to access vulnerablities on websites such as that of the US Navy.

Defacements from pro-Islamic hacking groups suggested that it was the
beginning of a new era of cyber hacking.

Peace campaigners

Now it seems that the hackers are getting closer to sensitive targets
with both the Whitehouse and Number 10 websites suffering attacks over
the weekend according to F-Secure.

"More and more people are joining in the fray," said General Manager
of F-Secure Jason Holloway.

"The majority of the messages are still anti-war," he added.

Qatar-based TV station Al-Jazeera has reported that a
denial-of-service attack could have been conducted on its website.

The attack has not been confirmed and could just be due to a large
weight of traffic. Al-Jazeera has now launched an English-language
version of its website which has also suffered outages.

This conflict has seen a new breed of hacktivist, in the shape of
pro-peace campaigners who have been joining pro-Islamic hackers and
pro-American groups in expressing their grievances online.

Political tensions around the globe are often mirrored in cyberspace.

Increased tensions in the Middle East and between Pakistan and India
have all been used by so-called hacktivists to launch web defacements
and denial of service attacks.

Three Iraq war-related computer viruses, including the Ganda worm,
have also been spotted by F-Secure, although the damage done by these
has been limited. Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/2888589.stm

Published: 2003/03/26 13:36:56

© BBC MMIII

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