Steve Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 9:02 PM Subject: U.S.: First cyberattack by terrorists >This NEWS.COM (http://www.news.com/) story has been sent to you from [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >U.S.: First cyberattack by terrorists >By NULL Reuters >May 5, 1998, 7:20 a.m. PT >http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C21779%2C00.html?sas.mail > > WASHINGTON--U.S. intelligence officials reported yesterday what they said was the first known attack by a "terrorist group" on a target country's computer systems. > > The cyberstrike apparently was little more than a bid by ethnic Tamil guerrillas to swamp Sri Lankan embassies with email, the officials told reporters at a briefing on worldwide guerrilla-violence trends. > > But the incident last year "did cause us to sit up and take notice" because it was the first of its kind involving a group branded as a terrorist organization by Washington and a possible "portent of worse things to come," one official said. > > The official attributed the reported cyberattack to a self-styled offshoot of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who have been fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka's north and east since 1983. > > In August, a group calling itself Internet Black Tigers claimed responsibility for "suicide email bombings" aimed at countering government propaganda sent electronically, the State Department said in its annual survey of guerrilla incidents last week. > > The intelligence officials said they had found indications of "increased interest on the part of a number of groups in chemical and biological means of attack, and also possibly the use of information systems terrorism." > > But an official emphasized he was referring only to unspecified "evidence of interest, not a question of actual operational capability, at least not at this point" with regard to chemical and biological weapons. > > Despite the reported growing guerrilla interest in possible new ways to do business, the chief threat to U.S. interests worldwide still comes from such low-technology weapons as truck bombs, one official said. > > "The fertilizer truck bomb has demonstrated its capacity on numerous occasions to inflict...mass casualties," he said. "We would consider those tried-and-true low-tech means of operation still to be the main type of attack about which we have to worry." > >Story Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. > > >------------------------------------------------------- > Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
