Hackers vandalize Labor, HHS Web sites

Computer hackers vandalized Web sites run by the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services on Saturday, according to officials at the two agencies. The www.health.gov site operated by HHS was defaced with a picture of Wang Wei, the Chinese pilot killed in a collision with a U.S. Navy spy plane April 1, and "unintelligible characters," according to agency spokesman Bill Hall. Similar graffiti sympathetic to Wei appeared on Labor's site, said Labor spokesman Stuart Roy. Another HHS site, www.surgeongeneral.gov, was knocked out of commission altogether.

Both Labor and HHS were able to get their sites up and running in a few hours, according to the two spokesmen. Hall and Roy said their departments had been warned earlier last week about possible attacks. "All of our Web people were on higher alert based on FBI notices that had gone out last week," said Hall. "They were obviously on heightened watch, and that's why they saw it right away." Although the hackers were able to deface the front page of Labor's site, they could not penetrate its firewall, said Roy. "Although we were not pleased with the graffiti on the front page, we were happy the firewall worked," Roy said. He said the prevention of computer graffiti is an ongoing challenge for Labor's Web team, but that it is constantly working on ways to improve the department's security system.