The war has already started !
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The Chinese hackers are responding to attacks on Chinese sites by American
hackers, including a group that calls itself PoizonBOx, military officials
said. Intelligence sources said they expect the attacks to start May 1.
For weeks, hacker chat rooms have been full of talk by Chinese and American
hackers about continuing their attacks. The Pentagon is worried it may be
caught in the middle.
The possible Chinese computer attack would be timed to mark a low point of
U.S.-China relations, 1999's accidental U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy
in Belgrade. And it would come weeks after the flap over a U.S. surveillance
plane was forced to land on an island in the South China Sea.
Since the standoff over the plane and the Chinese detainment of the 24 U.S.
crew members, American and Chinese hackers have threatened each other in
Internet chat rooms. American hackers have been urging each other to attack
Chinese Web sites, and the American group PoizonBOx has reportedly defaced
more than 100 Chinese sites.
On Alpha Alert
The Pentagon is preparing for denial-of-service attacks against unclassified
".mil" sites, the domain reserved for the U.S. military. Plus, military
officials said they expect attacks could target the ".gov" sites of the U.S.
government.
In a denial-of-service attack, hackers try to overwhelm a system's Web
servers by sending floods of requests.
To prepare, the U.S. Pacific Command has raised its information-systems
threat condition - known as INFOCON - to Alpha from normal, requiring close
monitoring of its Web sites, according to a Defense Department source.
Military officials expect to raise the threat level to Bravo or Charlie by
the middle of next week, the source said. Bravo calls for starting to limit
access to military sites, and Charlie requires pulling systems offline.
Delta, the highest threat level, calls for a system shutdown.
The Pentagon would take action against a denial-of-service attack by
blocking access to the targeted sites or pulling certain systems offline.
Officials are also monitoring unfamiliar e-mail attachments, which might
contain computer viruses.
The Pacific Command, based in Hawaii, declined to comment specifically on
the matter, but a spokeswoman told ABCNEWS: "We are dedicating additional
assets to monitor and track suspicious activity related to our computer and
communications systems."
Concern of Government Involvement
Pentagon officials said they believed Chinese hackers chose the first week
in May because of two important dates: a Chinese holiday on May 4 during
which many people would be home and on their personal computers; and May 7,
the anniversary of the embassy bombing.
Military sources told ABCNEWS that, although they expect the hack attacks
will be done by civilians, there is some concern that the Chinese government
could be backing the efforts.
During the standoff over the spy plane in early April, the Pacific Command
was targeted by Chinese hackers. A huge denial-of-service attack from China
shut down the Pacific Command's unclassified computer network for 12 hours,
according to a high-ranking Pentagon official.
