Computer
In addition, NYSE Euronext, the worlds largest owner of stock exchanges, said it was notified by authorities that it had been the target of a cyber attack aimed at slowing or shutting down its Web site.
The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the attacks and its Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or CERT, has advised government agencies and private companies on “steps to take to mitigate against such attacks,” Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an e-mail today.
The attacks are known as distributed denial of service, a common practice by hackers who commandeer remote computers to flood targeted Web sites with a large volume of data that renders the sites inaccessible to other users. Kudwa said she didnt have information on reports by Seoul-based Yonhap News that North Korea may have orchestrated the effort.
The attack on the State Departments state.gov site started July 5, department spokesman Ian Kelly said at the daily briefing with reporters today. “Its still ongoing, but Im told its much reduced right now.” He said he hadnt noticed “any real difficulties” in accessing the site.
Kelly declined to speculate on who was responsible for the attacks. “Were investigating, but we cant confirm the source of attacks yet,” he said.
Washington Post Targeted
The Washington Post reported today that its site had been targeted. A Treasury Department aide said the agencys Web sites were operational after an attack during the July 4 holiday weekend.
None of NYSE Euronexts trading systems or market data were at risk because they operate over private networks, NYSE Euronext said in an e-mailed statement.
The attempted breach was meant to overwhelm NYSE Euronexts Internet servers with requests for data, said Ray Pellecchia, a spokesman for the New York-based company. The design of the Web site meant NYSE Euronext experienced no problems with its nyse.com Web site or other services provided to issuers and traders through the Internet.
Department of Transportation spokeswoman Sasha Johnson said in an e-mail that the agency has been “experiencing minimal network incidents this past weekend. We are working with the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team at this time.”
Technical Problems
“Our Web site was down a couple of days ago due to technical problems and our people even as of yesterday were working on problems,” Peter Kaplan, an FTC spokesman, said in a phone interview. “We arent commenting on the details and we havent said its due to outside attacks.”
Security breaches on U.S. and private networks reported to the Department of Homeland Security almost doubled to 72,000 for the year ending October from 37,000 the previous year.
President Barack Obama said in May he will appoint a White House adviser to oversee the security of all government and business computer networks in response to widespread breaches and theft of information.
Daily Attacks
The weekends security intrusion “is not very different from the daily attacks” on U.S. computer networks, Marcus Sachs, Washington-based director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, said in an interview. The all-volunteer group of computer experts acts as a watchdog monitoring Internet attacks worldwide.
Unlike hackers who direct attacks at specific Web sites from remote unidentified computers, the weekend security breach appeared to be a “reprogrammed old worm allowed to spread on autopilot,” or malicious software code that seeks a target list of sites on its own, Sachs said. The inclusion of high-profile targets like the White House on the list does not mean the sites were attacked, Sachs said.
As with most computer attacks, proving the hackers origins or nationality is difficult, Sachs said. “If South Korea says this is coming from North Korea, I say prove it. Drawing conclusions is truly a fantasy at this moment.”