CDR: e-jihad

[anonymous at openpgp.net]

EXPERTS FEAR CYBERWARS SPREAD 
                                                Tuesday,October 31,2000 


                                                 By NILES LATHEM 


                                        The growing electronic war between Israeli and
                                        pro-Palestinian hackers threatens to shut down
                                        large portions of the Internet, government and
                                        industry, experts warned last night. 

                                        The FBIs National Infrastructure Protection
                                        Center, the agency that combats cybercrimes,
                                        recently sent out an advisory warning that the
                                        tit-for-tat attacks that have shut down and
                                        defaced Israeli government and Hezbollah and
                                        Hamas Web sites in the last month could "spill
                                        over," into the United States. 

                                        "Due to the credible threat of terrorist acts in the
                                        Middle East region and the conduct of these Web
                                        attacks, users should exercise increased
                                        vigilance to the possibility that U.S. government
                                        and private-sector Web sites may become
                                        potential targets," the FBI advisory said. 

                                        "In recent days, the overall threat condition for
                                        U.S. military forces in the Middle East has
                                        increased due to new credible threats of terrorist
                                        acts in the region. Similarly NIPC views the
                                        current conditions as creating the possibility for
                                        related cyberattack activity against U.S. sites," it
                                        said. 

                                        The cyberwar, or "e-Jihad" as the Palestinian
                                        side calls it, began earlier this month, when the
                                        Israeli-Palestinian conflict exploded.
                                        Sophisticated Israeli hackers defaced a Hezbollah
                                        Web site that was trying to incite anti-Israel
                                        violence among Palestinians. 

                                        The attacks escalated when Islamic militants
                                        based in Lebanon, London and the United States
                                        set up special "attack Web sites," in which users
                                        could send special jamming software via e-mail. 

                                        The attacks shut down top Israeli government
                                        Web sites for days. 

                                        ATT, which helped Israeli sites get back online,
                                        has become a recent target, according to recent
                                        message traffic from the Palestinian side. 

                                        Ben Venzke, an intelligence analyst for the
                                        Virginia-based iDefense, a computer security firm
                                        that is tracking the cyberwar, said hackers going
                                        by the names Dodi, ReAList and Nir-MN are
                                        turning to increasingly sophisticated programs
                                        and are now threatening to unleash devastating
                                        viruses and software. 

http://www.nypostonline.com/news/14989.htm