Investigators seek clues to White House Web site attack

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO60283,00.html

By RICK PERERA
IDG NEWS SERVICE
May 07, 2001

White House officials are still unsure who is responsible for a
denial-of-service attack Friday on the U.S. presidential Web site.
The attack caused "some degradation" of service beginning at about 8
a.m. EDT and blocked access entirely between about 9 a.m. and 11:15
a.m., spokesman Jimmy Orr said today.

Technical staff are taking measures to beef up security of the White
House servers, he said.

It's not the first time hackers have targeted the U.S. president's Web
site, Orr said. "It has happened during the past administration that
the Web site was down for a day or two a few times," he said.

When asked whether investigators suspect a link between the incident
and a series of recent attacks on U.S. government servers attributed
to Chinese hackers, Orr would only say, "I can't speculate at this
time."

The U.S. National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), the FBI
office responsible for computer security, warned late last month of an
expected upswing in attacks against U.S. servers by Chinese hackers,
given an increase in political tensions between the two countries.

A spokeswoman for the NIPC could not be immediately reached for
comment today.

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