The US Sergeant at Arms Office confirmed on Monday that the Senate’s website had been hacked this past weekend and that it has ordered a review of all Senate computer sites. “Although this intrusion is inconvenient, it does not compromise the security of the Senate’s network, its members or staff,” a Sergeant at Arms Office official said.
“Specifically, there is no individual user account information on the server supporting senate.gov that could have been compromised.”
The revelation came after a loosely aligned group of computer hackers calling themselves Lulz Security said they broke into the US Senate’s computer network. Lulz Security, who have hacked into Sony’s website and the US 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?” The comment refers to reports that the US military had decided that it could respond to cyber attacks from foreign countries with traditional military force. Senate staffers asked about the hack were unaware of it.
“They (Lulz) certainly demonstrated that they were in and they found the file server,” said Stewart Baker, a former cyber official at the Department of Homeland Security.