FBI, Senate Web Sites Hacked

W A S H I N G T O N,   May 28 -- Internet sites for the FBI and the Senate remained inaccessible today after hackers launched a series of electronic attacks against some state and federal government computers.

Hackers defaced the Senate’s Web page Thursday before it was taken down, and another group claimed responsibility for defacing a Virginia state government Web site that remained altered today.

A message left on the Virginia site announced, “We think it’s payback time now.”

The FBI said it took down its own Web site after the bureau found that hackers tried unsuccessfully to compromise it.

FBI Site May Remain Down

FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weyerman said it was unclear when the FBI site might be made available again but might not be until the weekend or early next week.

“We doubt it’s going to be today,” she said.

The attack did not affect the FBI’s internal e-mail or other computer systems, she said, adding there was no evidence whether the hack on the Senate Web site was related to the FBI’s problems.

Weyerman said the FBI’s Web server computer suffered a denial-of-service attack, a common technique in which the computer was overwhelmed with repeated electronic requests — like a telephone ringing so continuously that it blocks other callers.

Group Claims Revenge

An obscene message left briefly on the Senate’s Web site blamed the attack on what it said was the FBI’s harassment of specific hacker groups, including the group that boasted of breaking into the White House site earlier this month.

“Who laughs last?” the message said in part, adding that the intent was to rebuke “our friends at the FBI.”

Sherry Little, a spokeswoman for the Senate Sergeant at Arms, which operates the Senate site, said technical experts met today with the FBI “to resolve the problem to get the Web site back up and to figure out what security measures need to be put in place to prevent a reoccurence.”