[ale] Wanna Bet your WebSite on MS? (George Bush Hacked)

Jeff Dilcher dilcher at cueva.com
Tue Oct 19 20:41:29 EDT 1999


Wonder if the Bush campaign will continue to use
MS for their web server....

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Hackers Alter Bush Campaign Site
By Ted Bridis
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1999; 6:27 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON -- Hackers apparently vandalized the campaign Web site for
presidential candidate George W. Bush early Tuesday, replacing his photo
with an image of a hammer and sickle and calling for "a new October
revolution."

The embarrassing lapse in computer security came the day after the Bush
campaign launched what it described as its "innovative new design" for its
Internet site, www.georgewbush.com.

"We have our Webmasters working on it right now," said Mindy Tucker, a
spokeswoman. "We're looking to figure out what happened."

Tucker said the campaign's more sensitive computer operations - such as its
e-mail system and contribution records - were protected on other machines
and weren't believed to have been compromised.

The hackers replaced a news story about Bush on the Web site with a note
that "the success or failure of the working class to achieve victory depends
upon a revolution (of) leadership."

The Web site runs software from Microsoft Corp., called Internet Information
Server, that has suffered several serious security problems during the past
year. Microsoft has distributed patches in each case but relies on local
computer administrators to install them correctly.

It's unclear how long the altered version of the Bush site was accessible by
the public, but it was repaired by late Tuesday morning.

"The image wasn't subtle," said Jeremy Pinnix, a director at a Nashville,
Tenn., design company who captured a snapshot of the vandalized Web site. He
said he notified the Bush campaign immediately, but "they didn't really seem
too worried."

Tucker said the campaign was working to make sure that hackers couldn't
vandalize the Web site again - a task made difficult because its experts
weren't sure yet how it was vulnerable in the first place.

"We can only do that when we determine that something happened, and how and
why," she said.

Bush wasn't the first presidential candidate this year to suffer from
electronic vandals. Hackers altered the Internet site of Vice President Al
Gore, www.algore2000.com, in April; they replaced his photo with a blurred
image and the message: "Should Al Gore be president? It's a little unclear
(get it?)"




© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press

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