CIA website hacked by LulzSec

The hacker group LulzSec claimed credit Wednesday for taking down the CIA’s Web site for a couple of hours, the latest in a string of embarrassing Web site disruptions the group has pulled off — apparently more to poke fun and highlight vulnerabilities than to cause real damage.

At 5:48 p.m., LulzSec, which dubs itself “the world’s leaders in high-quality entertainment at your expense,” posted an alert on Twitter: “Tango down — cia.gov — for the lulz.”


The site was back up by 8 p.m.

But the fact that the group could penetrate Web sites and harvest system administrators’ credentials underscores the risks of failing to secure sites, experts said.

“Web sites are the low-hanging fruit,” said Richard Stiennon, a cyber expert and author of “Surviving Cyberwar.” “But the Web sites are running on a server. Once you completely own the server that the Web site is on, you can watch the insiders log in and record their activity, and that can be a front door into the organization.”




READ MORE HERE