WEB SITE DEFACEMENT FEARED

Hackers making contest of nuisance
Computer hackers plan to deface thousands of Web sites worldwide this Sunday as part of a nefarious game being coordinated over the Internet.
The anonymous organizers of the "Defacers Challenge" claim on a Web site that the goal will be to deface 6,000 Web sites in six hours. Winners will purportedly get prizes such as Web hosting space and Internet domain names.
Web site defacement usually is more of a nuisance than a financial or operational problem for organizations that are attacked, security experts said Wednesday. Home Internet users shouldn't be affected at all.
Most big companies and organizations that already use Internet firewall software and take other standard precautions with their Web servers shouldn't have much to worry about, the experts said.
And since the supposed contest is limited to Web site defacement, there shouldn't be widespread Web slowdowns and other Internet problems that come with more egregious hacking attacks involving viruses and worms.
"This does seem a little more ambitious, but these sorts of things happen all the time," said David Wray, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity division. The department warned an organization of government computer managers to be vigilant with Web security, but issued no formal warnings to the public.
Some private security companies, however, urged clients to take precautions such as adding firewalls and security software, backing up files and limiting access to their Web servers to prevent hacking.
"The problem is now, and you shouldn't wait until Sunday to address it," said Pete Allor of Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems Inc., which runs a cyber-threat detection database and service that's well known among computer professionals and government agencies.
Allor said his company has seen a substantial increase in Web scanning across the Internet in recent days, which would indicate hackers are looking for new holes into organizations' Web servers.
Other computer security experts, however, accused Internet Security Systems and others of causing undue hype about the contest.
"Nobody at all was talking about this until ISS started," said David Kennedy, director of research services for TruSecure Corp., another security firm based near Dayton.
Kennedy said that by publicly discussing the hacker contest, ISS - along with the media and the Department of Homeland Security - could drive interest in it and make a widespread hacking attack a "self- fulfilling prophecy."