Hackers Hit Air Force Web Site ‘Their Security Is Simply Pathetic,’ Boasts One Computer Vandal
At least one computer hacker broke into the Air Force’s main World Wide Web computer early Sunday morning, replacing the service’s home page with obscenities and anti-government slogans, an Air Force spokesman said Monday.
The Air Force said the intrusion was limited to the opening screen on its Web site and involved no sensitive material.
But a man who claimed to have aided the tampering said his team had access to the entire Air Force electronic mail system, including classified documents. Some computer experts said that was plausible.
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the FBI are trying to determine the extent of the breakin, said Capt. Terry L. Bowman, an Air Force spokesman.
The attack added the Air Force to the growing list of government organizations, including the CIA, the Justice Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, that have recently succumbed to attacks from cyberspace.
Most public Defense Department Web sites were disconnected from the Internet after Air Force personnel discovered the intrusion around 11 a.m. on Sunday, about six hours after the hackers took control, Bowman said. While some sites were restored more quickly, the Air Force home page (http://www.af.mil/) remained off-line Monday afternoon.
The infiltrated Air Force computer is at the Defense Technical Information Center in Fort Belvoir, Va., which also has the main World Wide Web computers for the Army and the Marines, Bowman said.
The Air Force page was changed to read, “Welcome to the Truth,” above dripping blood and a pair of red eyeballs. The introductory text read: “You can learn all about gov’t corruption here. Learn the secrets that they don’t know want you to know.”
Most of the page encourages readers to disbelieve the U.S. government, including an X-rated picture with the caption, “This is what your gov’t is doing to you every day.”
The changed page contained links to a Web site detailing a supposed government coverup of alien landings in the American West, a site providing information and computer programs for hackers and the home page of an organization called the 42 Freedom Fighters, which describes itself as “a group that harbors conspiracy nuts, pop culture addicts, freaks, academics and at least one fugitive from the law.”
A man who claimed to be the designer of the substitute Web page said: “This was a complete server takeover. We literally could have dismantled all the electronic information, including E-mail.”
The man, who would only be described as a 23-year-old businessman in San Diego, said, “We did it simply to show them you’ve got to upgrade security. Their security is simply pathetic on government systems, and it’s not stopping anyone.
“One of the people involved in the actual break-in was only 15. A foreign government could go through that security in a few minutes.”