Chinese Anti-War Protest Hackers Targeting Net -- secret memo

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Richard Jay Solomon <rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 09:07:49 -0500
To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)
Subject: Chinese Anti-War Protest Hackers Targeting Net -- secret memo

Does anyone have a copy of the bulletin that was pulled from the DHS site?

> Hackers Plan Attacks To Protest Iraq War
> Chinese Group Targets U.S., U.K. Sites
> By Brian Krebs
> washingtonpost.com
> Tuesday, April 1, 2003; Page A24
>
>
> Chinese hacker groups are planning attacks on U.S.- and U.K.-based Web sites
> to protest the war in Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security warned in an
> alert that it unintentionally posted on a government Web site yesterday.
>
> The hackers are planning "distributed denial-of-service" attacks, which render
> Web sites and networks unusable by flooding them with massive amounts of
> traffic. They also are planning to deface selected Web sites, according to the
> alert, though the government said it did not know when the attacks would
> occur.
>
> The Homeland Security Department said it got the information by monitoring an
> online meeting that the hackers held last weekend to coordinate the attacks.
> The department sent the alert to government and industry officials over the
> weekend but accidentally posted the link on the home page of the National
> Infrastructure Protection Center. The alert was pulled hours later.
>
> Homeland Security Department spokesman David Wray said the information was not
> supposed to be released to the public. "This was an inadvertent release and
> the information, while not classified, is sensitive," he said.
>
> The messages cited in the alert were posted on several hacker Web sites
> thought to be affiliated with the "Honker Union of China," a cadre of Chinese
> hackers that launched an assault against dozens of U.S. government Web sites
> in May 2001 after the collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S.
> surveillance plane on April 1, 2001. "Honker" is Chinese slang for "hacker."
>
> The group claimed responsibility then for defacements on the Web sites of the
> National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Navy, the Labor Department, and other
> government agencies and businesses.
> The Homeland Security Department's warning comes amid a flurry of antiwar
> hacking activity. About 10,000 Web sites have been marred with digital
> graffiti by protesters and supporters of U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to
> F-Secure Corp., a Finnish Internet security firm.
> © 2003 The Washington Post Company


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