Feds fight cyberattacks on public image

Cyberassaults on federal authorities are garnering increased attention due to publicity-seeking hackers, but those authorities say other, perhaps more harmful, intrusions are going undetected.

Hacker activist group Anonymous on Friday claimed to have intercepted a phone call between the FBI and U.K. Metropolitan Police Service agents about investigations into fellow hacktivists. On Jan. 19, the same anti-government protesters took credit for bombarding Justice.gov and FBI.gov with site-crippling traffic after U.S. authorities shuttered piracy file-sharing website Megaupload.

The cooperative then boasted on message boards that U.S. intelligence officials told Congress last week that hackers will surpass terrorists as the greatest menace to society. The FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were referring to nations and nongovernment groups, perhaps hacktivists, with computer programs capable of disrupting not only websites, but also systems that operate power grids and other critical infrastructure.

"We assess that many intrusions into U.S. networks are not being detected," DNI James Clapper testified on Jan. 31, regarding cyberespionage. "Although most activity detected to date has been targeted against unclassified networks connected to the Internet, foreign cyber actors have also begun targeting classified networks."

To deal with online protesters, the FBI is increasing its presence internationally and the Homeland Security Department is instructing federal system administrators on how to recover from cyber strikes. DHS' U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned in an alert that attackers could seek retribution for the Megaupload takedown and legislative proposals to block other websites suspected of intellectual property theft. The memo described the malicious software in play and other digital hallmarks of the attackers. DHS officials told agencies to keep on hand contact information for their Internet service providers, segregate critical Web services and collect normal traffic statistics to use as a point of comparison when investigating site interferences.

FBI officials on Monday said their computer systems were not breached, following claims that Anonymous wiretapped the call between U.S. and U.K. authorities and published an FBI email displaying the email addresses of participants on the call. Some observers have said one caller forwarded that message to a private email account that was subsequently hacked.

"The information was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained," the FBI said in a statement. "A criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible."

Justice Department officials Monday confirmed again that increased traffic activity on Jan. 19 degraded service. A spokeswoman said, "at this time, however, we would decline to comment on the specific steps undertaken to address the issue."