Hackers Discuss Retaliatory Cyberstrikes

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170025.html

By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
12 Sep 2001, 3:40 PM CST
 
Although the U.S. government has yet to publicly identify suspects in
Tuesday's terrorist attacks on America, some hackers are already
plotting counterstrikes against Islamic Web sites, according to
postings in Internet newsgroups.

So far, the impact of the planned retaliatory hacking has been
limited.

The official Web site of the Presidential Palace of the Islamic State
of Afghanistan was unreachable today, after its address was published
in several Internet newsgroups.

"Let the Afghan government know what you think about them harboring
Bin Laden," wrote one participant in talk.guns.politics.

Similarly, the homepage of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has been
frequently inaccessible today, despite a statement at the site from
president general Pervez Musharraf condemning the attacks. The site's
address was posted Tuesday to an Internet newsgroup named
alt.hackers.malicious in a message entitled "Pakistani government
LOVES trojans."

Attempts to reach operators of the two sites, which may be under a
denial of service attack, were unsuccessful.

The Web site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic State
of Afghanistan, however, appeared to be fully operational today.

Federal agents reportedly have taken into custody several people in
three states today who may be connected to the attacks on New York and
Washington, D.C. But no arrests have yet been announced.

A message posted to several hacking newsgroups Tuesday instructed
readers to "trash this site ASAP" and provided what the poster claimed
was the address of "Osama Bin Laden's Web site."

The address currently redirects surfers to a page that has "exceeded
its allocated data transfer" according to a message from Yahoo's
Geocities free Web page service.

According to a statement from the U.S. State Department, Usama Bin
Muhammad Bin Awad Bin Ladin "is one of the most significant sponsors
of Sunni Islamic terrorist groups."

An article published today at an online news site suggested that
Taleban.com, a Web site registered to an organization in Flushing, New
York, was defaced by a Russian hacker in response to Tuesday's
attacks.

It was not immediately clear, however, when the defacement took place.
The same hacker also defaced Taleban.com in March and July of this
year, according to records maintained by the Alldas.de and
Safemode.org defacement archives.

The July defacement of Taleban.com was identical to the one on display
at the site Tuesday, according to James Atkinson of the Granite Island
Group, a firm specializing in technical surveillance counter measures.

The operators of Taleban.com could not be reached for comment.

In a statement issued today, the Computer Emergency Response Team said
it is "not seeing any significant increases in incident activity on
the Internet."

The federally funded security information clearinghouse advised,
however, that "recent events might cause people to examine the need to
protect the information infrastructure."

One contributor to a security mailing list offered this advice today
to what he termed "patriotic script kiddies," "If you really want to
do your nation a favor, lock your desktop, then go out and donate
blood."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic State of Afghanistan is
online at http://www.afghan.gov.af .

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is at http://www.pak.gov.pk .

The Presidential Palace of the Islamic State of Afghanistan is at
http://www.afghangovernment.org .



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