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June 11, 1999
Web posted at: 7:56 p.m. EDT (2356 GMT)

(CNN) -- Computer hackers on Friday broke into and defaced the U.S. government Web site www.senate.gov for the second time in a little more than two weeks.

The hackers left the page's overall look similar to how it normally appears. For example, they left untouched a link to a "today in history" feature but substituted news that "Senator Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., was assassinated."

A crude sexual reference appeared at another point on the Senate home page. The hackers also posted an apparent protest message stating, "You CAN stop ONE, but you can NOT stop ALL! Free Kevin, Free Zyklon," on the Senate site.

"Kevin" refers to Kevin Mitnick, a legendary figure in the computer world who recently pleaded guilty to computer security offenses, and is currently in jail in California.

A link posted on the Senate site leads to another Web site, kevinmitnick.com, which contains information advocating Mitnick's release.

Some computer enthusiasts believe Mitnick has been unfairly singled out for prosecution on what they consider to be exaggerated charges, and they have waged an online campaign to free him.

"Zyklon" apparently refers to the online nickname for Eric Burns. He was recently charged with three counts of unlawful computer intrusion. It is also believed that he is being questioned in regard to the recent whitehouse.gov Web site crack.

The defacement of the Senate site is the latest in a string of well publicized defacements of government Web sites, including those of the FBI, the White House, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy.

The FBI already was investigating a May 27 attack on the Senate Web site, FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said. "This current (attack), I can't give you a reason why it happened."

The FBI made its own Internet site inaccessible last month after hackers overwhelmed its Internet computers using a denial of service attack, a relatively common technique to overload a site.

One computer security expert said the second electronic assault on the Senate site doesn't inspire confidence in Internet security.

"If the FBI and the Senate can be so easily hacked, what does that say for the nation, in the public and private sectors?" asked James Adams, chief executive officer of Infrastructure Defense Inc., which works to protect companies against hackers.

"What we have at the moment is a quite remarkable lack of knowledge about what's out there and how to defend against it," Adams said. "Until it's addressed, you're going to see this again and again."

A group called the Varna Hacking Group (VHG) is apparently taking credit for Friday's altering of the Senate site. VHG's name appeared on a hacked Web site in November, 1998, when the home page for the Cartoon Network cable channel was defaced.

Varna is the name of a city in Bulgaria, and the November 1998 message posted on the Cartoon Network page called for global attention to the economic conditions facing Bulgarian children.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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