The planned span of the attacks coincides with two major Chinese holidays, International Workers Day and Youth Day. May 7 also marks the second anniversary of the accidental US bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. They've been in chat rooms on the Internet rallying for a network war. FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the agency knew of the organized attacks but declined to confirm whether the Hackers Union was behind them. David Jarrell,director of the Federal Computer Incident Response Center, the US government's focal point for civilian computer security, played down the severity of Monday's attacks.
Today is only slightly above average.
The attacks come amid heightened tensions following the April 1 collision of a US spy plane and a Chinese jet. According to Vigilinx and Symantec, another Internet security firm, several US hackers launched individual attacks against Chinese sites in the weeks following the incident. Experts say this week's attacks represent retaliatory strikes. Although the attacks were not set to begin officially until Monday, Saturday provided a prelude of things to come. Over the weekend, websites for the US Departments of Health and Human Services and Labor, as well as a site run by the White House Historical Society, were defaced with images of the Chinese flag and of Weng Wei, the Chinese pilot who died in the crash.