The hackers left political graffiti, and the server has since been taken down, but there was no damage to sensitive data or equipment, government spokesmen said Thursday.

The NOAA's primary objective is to describe and predict changes in the Earth's environment, but it has also had a role in cleanup and recovery efforts in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks -- its remote sensing expertise helped map the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers. Federal investigators are looking into the incident.

"Basically, they wound up hacking a backup to a backup of a server that we use to provide aviation weather information to the [Federal Aviation Administration]," Web administrator of the NOAA site Greg Hernandez told NewsFactor Network.

"So they did not do any damage whatsoever to any of the operational data that goes to the FAA. Forensics is still being done on the Web server. It hasn't been determined yet exactly how they got in but we should have that wrapped up by next week," Hernandez said.

Conflicting Messages

The attack was the work of a well-known Pakistani hacking group calling itself Gforce -- the same group that earlier this month announced a "cyber-jihad" on the U.S. and Great Britain.

In its defacement of the site, GForce said: "In a few days we will hit major U.S. military and British Web sites, we will jeopardize their internal security." It also warned of an online alliance involving groups aligned with Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group headed by Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the September 11th attacks.

The group left a conflicting message, saying it condemns the terrorist strikes but also supports Al-Qaeda.

More Nuisance Than Threat

The hackers also made threats: "We have some very high confidential U.S. data that will be given to the right authorities of Al-Qaeda; remember if you give us peace you will get peace," it said.

The group demanded that the U.S. stop its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, remove U.S. troops from Saudi Arabian soil, and stop its support of Israel.

Authorities have described most hacking incidents thus far as more of a nuisance than a real threat, but they warn that as military operations escalate, more sophisticated, organized cyber-attacks are a possibility.

Second Internet for Government? (continued...)

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