WASHINGTON: The US Senate's website was hacked over the weekend, leading to a review of all of its websites, in the latest embarrassing breach of security to hit a major US-based institution.The loosely organized hacker group Lulz Security broke into a public portion of the Senate website but did not reach behind a firewall into a more sensitive portion of the network, Martina Bradford, the deputy Senate sergeant at arms, said on Monday.
Despite the breach, the Sergeant at Arms Office, which provides security for the Senate, said that the breach had not compromised any individual senator's information.
Lulz announced the hack on Monday.
"We were responding to their allegations. Basically what we're saying that the server they got into is for public access and is in the public side," said Bradford.
Lulz Security, who have hacked into Sony's website and the U.S. Public Broadcasting System, posted online a list of files that appear not to be sensitive but indicate the hackers had been into the Senate's computer network.
"We don't like the US government very much," Lulz Security said at the top of their release. "This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from Senate.gov -- is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?"
| Stupid, ignorant, sexist idiots. There are seventeen women serving in the Senate at the moment; I imagine they now like Lulz even less than their male colleagues. |
We wouldn't go to war with Lulz. But perhaps we could beat them with sticks...