Hacker group boasts cracking U.S. Senate website

PanARMENIAN.Net - A hacker group that has claimed attacks on media and law-enforcement affiliates extended its month-long cyber mischief Monday, June 13, boasting that it had cracked the U.S. Senate's website.

According to Wall Street Journal, the group, Lulz Security, posted on its own website a configuration file for the Senate's main website. The material in the file suggests sensitive information was not breached, but does indicate Lulz Security infiltrated the Senate's website.

"This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from Senate.gov," Lulz Security said in a news release. "Is this an act of war, gentlemen?"

A senate spokeswoman acknowledged that over the weekend the chamber's website, senate.gov, was breached, but said the intruder didn't gain access to the Senate's computer network. The intrusion is part of a spree of hacks by the group, which has targeted Japanese media-and-technology giant Sony Corp., the Atlanta chapter of Federal Bureau of Investigation affiliate InfraGard and U.S. public broadcaster PBS.

Also on Monday, LulzSec, as the group sometimes refers to itself, said it had broken into a website run by Bethesda Softworks LLC., which makes horror and fantasy games. Bethesda Softworks acknowledged its network had been breached but said no personal financial information or credit-card data had been stolen.

"The hackers may have gained access to some user names, email addresses, and/or passwords," the company said. "As a precaution, we recommend that all our fans immediately change passwords on all our sites."