Hackers break into Interior, Army Web sites BY Dan Verton 03/17/2000 A hacker group calling themselves "Crime Boys" has launched successful attacks this week against World Wide Web pages maintained by the Interior Department and the Army.

The hackers, thought to work out of Brazil, this week defaced the main Web pages maintained by the Bureau of Land Managements National Training Center and the Armys Reserve Officer Training Corps Command. The group also attempted a third series of attacks against NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, forcing the agency to block all Internet traffic from Brazil.

The Crime Boys broke into the National Training Center Web site March 12 and replaced the agencys Web page with a page protesting the Brazilian government. Officials discovered the attack the next morning. The hackers launched a second attack March 16, replacing the page a second time even as NTC officials were correcting some of the security problems.

The group claimed to be protesting what they called a "corrupt" Brazilian government. But they also sent a message to the federal agencies that the sites targeted were "very badly configured."

Security officials at NASAs JPL last week also detected a "fairly substantial number of attacks" originating in Brazil, said Frank ODonnell, spokesman at the Pasadena, Calif.-based laboratory. The agency put in a temporary block that restricted nearly the entire country of Brazil from viewing the agencys Web sites and also installed security patches, ODonnell said. JPL removed the block at noon EST, March 17.

The National Postal Mail Handlers Union site, which is accessible through the U.S. Postal Services intranet, also has been attacked, but it is unclear what group is responsible for the attacks.

Phillip Loranger, chief of the Command and Control Protect Division at the Armys Information Assurance Office, announced March 14 that the group had threatened to take down the main Army home page [FCW.com, March 15]. However, sources say the main Army page was too difficult for the group to crack because it is based on Apple Computer Inc.s MacIntosh WebStar platform.

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0313/web-armyhac-03-17-00.asp

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 18, 2000