[iwar] [fc:Network.Technology's.Home.Page]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-26 13:45:36


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Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:45:36 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Network.Technology's.Home.Page]
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Network Technology's Home Page 
Jay Lyman, NewsFactor, 10/26/2001
<a href="http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/printer/14414/">http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/printer/14414/>

Hacker groups have vowed to attack the Web sites and the information
infrastructure of terrorists and their supporters. However, experts
report that the increase in "hacktivism" -- the defacement of Web sites
for political reasons -- has brought unintended consequences. 
After the September 11th terrorist attacks, a Web site for the
government of the Islamic State of Afghanistan -- an opponent of the
region's Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden -- was flooded with hate
message e-mails and forced to shut down temporarily after being hacked. Please note 
that this material is copyright protected. Therefore, it is
illegal to display or reproduce this article for any commercial purpose,
including use as marketing or public relations literature. To obtain
legal reprints of this article, please call a sales representative at +1
(818) 528-1100 or visit http://www.newsfactor.com/reprints.shtml.

The site explains its predicament and says it will be republishing the
page soon. But despite e-mail apologies from several hackers, including
Americans, who mistakenly targeted the anti-Taliban site, experts say
the botched hack defacements are likely to continue to be a part of
hacktivisim. 

On Your Side 

Jalaluddin Rabbani, director of the Islamic State of Afghanistan Web
site, says in a statement that despite what visitors and hackers had
thought, the site does not support the Taliban and is in fact owned by
the presidential palace of the anti-Taliban Islamic State of
Afghanistan. 

"This Web site does not belong to Terrorist Taliban and Usama bin Ladin
regime," the statement says. "We have been receiving ignorant and
disturbing e-mails from visitors who can't distinguish a difference
between Taliban Usama bin Ladin with the Government of Islamic State of
Afghanistan, who has been fighting against them for the last six years" 
"Due to that reason we were hacked and were down since last week," the
statement continues. 

Who's Getting Hacked? 

Security Focus incident analyst Ryan Russell told NewsFactor Network
that the recent hacking efforts are similar to pro-U.S. and pro-Chinese
defacements that occurred last May. 

He said while pro-Chinese groups successfully hit more than 1,000 Web
sites, many of those sites were not in the U.S., and the retaliatory
hacking effort targeted a number of sites based on their domain name
extension, rather than content or purpose. 

"There were actually a whole bunch of Web sites that ended in "cn" that
got hit with defacement," Russell said. "There were sites getting hit
that had nothing to do pro or against the U.S. They were just
mom-and-pop Web sites and they fell for [hackers'] exploits." 

It's Only Defacement 

While he recalled a hacking situation where a Pakistani group reportedly
hacked a nuclear information site of the Indian government, Russell told
NewsFactor that defacements resulting from hacktivism are usually just
conflicts among hacker groups. 

"Given the current climate, Web site defacement doesn't really hurt
anyone," Russell said. "It's nothing on the order of a terrorist attack,
economic sanction or military action." 

Still, the unintended victims may be knocked offline, as appeared to
have been the case with the anti-Taliban Islamic State of Afghanistan. 
"There are times the guys making these defacements can't even read the
language for the site they're defacing," Russell said. "They have no
idea if they're for or against or representing the government. They
could be extremely opposed to the government."

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