Hacker attacks strike numerous Jewish Web sites

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500276044-500431830-502730330-0,00.html

IAN HOPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (November 3, 2000 7:52 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Animosity between Israel and Palestinians
is spilling over into cyberspace, with Arab computer
"hacktivists" launching attacks on Jewish Web sites both in Israel and
the United States.

Two Arab hacker groups broke into and defaced Israeli Web sites Friday
following an attack Wednesday in which Pakistani-based hackers
attacked a U.S. Web site belonging to a powerful pro-Israel lobby,
stealing credit card numbers and member records.

Now more hackers are targeting Israeli sites, supporting the
perpetrators of Wednesday's attack with diatribes against Israel and
graphic photos of the injured.

The efforts are part of a relatively new way of combining hacking with
political resistance, known as "hacktivism." Mexican guerrilla and
Yugoslav hackers have used the tactic and several Pakistani groups
periodically target Indian Web sites, condemning Indians for violence
in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

An international security consulting firm, Control Risks Group,
released a report this week warning companies about hacktivists and
their recent attacks against business Web sites rather than just
government agencies.

"Some of these attacks result in something like a sit-in," said Kent
Anderson, the company's director of security and investigations. "But
some of the groups have more of a malicious bent to them."

The practice is popular among the young, opinionated and disaffected
seeking a way to strike against governments with little risk. With so
many Web sites as targets, it's simple for them to find one with lax
security, ripe for an attack.

The Israeli-Palestinian violence that flared several weeks ago has
kept Web site administrators on both sides busy defending their sites
from enemy hackers attempting to win a propaganda war.

In the volleys, hackers have targeted the Web sites of the Knesset,
Israel's Parliament, an Israeli Internet provider and several sites
run by the Hezbollah guerrillas.

One group calling itself GForce Pakistan, which has defaced many Web
sites in the past, assaulted at least three Israeli sites Friday - the
Jewish Bible Association and the Visiting Israel Students Association
and a technology company. The hackers replaced their pages with "Free
Kashmir" and "Free Palestine" slogans and added bloody images. "m0r0n
and nightman" took credit for an attack on a site belonging to an
Israeli school, Yizrael Valley College.

"Today we are very happy that people are coming back and hacking
against the cruelties done to Muslims all round the world," the
hackers wrote on the defaced college site.

In Wednesday's attack against the American-Israel Public Affairs
Committee, hackers also downloaded donors' credit card information and
made the numbers public on other Web sites run by the
hackers. Spokesman Ken Bricker said the 700 affected members - which
included some public officials - have been notified.

In the past year, hackers have stolen hundreds of thousands of credit
card numbers from Internet retail sites. The numbers are typically
sold or auctioned. Hacktivists, however, rarely steal data.

B.K. DeLong, a staff member of Attrition.org, a site that monitors Web
security issues, said hacktivism is meant more for the general public
than the target government.

"I'm not sure if political leaders in the center of the issue being
brought up in the defacements really pay attention to them unless it
happens to be their own organization, government or departmental Web
site," said DeLong. "However they do enlighten the general public to
the situation or perhaps people in other countries who are tech savvy
but may not be aware of the issue."

Though the lobbying group's site is down, Bricker said he's not
demoralized.

"From a P.R. point of view, this is a net gain for us," he said. "They
have given us the role of victim here. We're getting phone calls from
people who now want to join and donate, albeit not through the
Internet."


*==============================================================*
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without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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