HHS and Labor sites hacked over weekend
HHS and Labor sites hacked over weekend
By Preeti Vasishtha
GCN Staff
APRIL 30—Web sites at the Labor and Health and Human Services departments were hacked Saturday.
A picture of Wang Wei, a Chinese pilot who was killed in a collision with a U.S. Navy surveillance plane April 1, was posted on HHS's
www.health.gov, along with a text message, HHS spokesman Bill Hall said. Another HHS Web site,
www.surgeongeneral.gov, was also attacked. Similar vandalism was done to a Labor site.
The HHS sites were up and running a few hours after the breaches, Hall said. 'We [installed] additional protection after our people were able to figure out how the hackers got in the system,' he said.
The identity of the hackers remains unknown, and the FBI is investigating.
Webmasters throughout government had been alerted to be on the lookout for such attacks, Hall said.
The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center said recently that there was a potential for increased hacker activity directed at U.S. systems between April 30 and May 7, coinciding with Chinese International Worker's Day activities.
A similar attack occurred on a Navy site last month (see story at
www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/3941-1.html).