Boys will be boys, hackers will be hackers, and cyberlife during wartime includes hacking for peace. Welcome to the modern world, folks.
The U.S.-Iraq war has provoked several rounds of Website defacements by pro- and anti-war hackers against American government Websites or a few American anti-war pages.
The BBC says Web pages of the U.S. National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research and the Navy have been hacked by peace messages. Generally, the BBC added, the hackers could be divided into three groups, according to British security firm F-Secure: pro-war groups, anti-war groups, and Islamic extremists.
"In the past hack attacks have been about the kudos of breaking into a website and proving yourself the best hacker," F-Secure general manager Jason Holloway told the BBC. "But this seems to be using the Web as a soapbox and a way of spreading a message. The vast majority of these attacks have been pro-peace and that is unusual."
One American cybersecurity firm, iDefense, told the BBC they picked up on a rash of anti-war hacks over "hundreds" of American Websites by the Unix Security Guards, which they described as a pro-Islamic group.
