[ISN] Islamic hackers hit Vatican site -- unsuccessfully

From: InfoSec News (alerts@private)
Date: Mon Oct 16 2006 - 23:29:05 PDT


http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=47065

Vatican, Oct. 13 (CWNews.com) - Islamic computer hackers tried to 
disrupt the Vatican web site earlier this week, but failed, according to 
a report in the ANSA news service.

In an online forum for militant Muslims, a group announced plans for an 
assault on the Vatican computer network, which was said to be a form of 
retribution for Pope Benedict's criticism of Islam in his Regensburg 
speech. Police later confirmed that there had been a concerted effort by 
hackers to penetrate the Vatican site, but computer-security experts 
were able to detect and repel the attack.

The nature of the attempted attack was not clear. Some observers in Rome 
believed that the Islamic group was planning a "denial of service" 
attack, in which a web site is bombarded with many thousands of 
simultaneous visits, overloading the available bandwidth and making it 
impossible for others to reach the site.

In fact the Vatican site has functioned normally, with minimal 
noticeable slowdowns, through the week. Vatican security personnel are 
remaining vigilant in case of another effort by the hackers. 


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