Hackers hit Vegas court site

Kevin Ferguson

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2001 | 11:30 a.m.

Computer hackers defaced a busy federal Internet website in Las Vegas this week, frustrating many users trying to access bankruptcy court records.

The attackers, calling themselves the "Hi-Tech Hate Crew," replaced the home page of the "RACER" site operated by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada with a message saying "Why do we hack?"

RACER stands for Remote Access to Court Electronic Records.

"We hack 'cause we r fighting against bad information, all of us ain't terrorists, or stupid boyz who don't know what we're doing," part of the message said.

The attack occurred between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Monday, and the site isn't expected to be repaired until sometime this afternoon, said Vickie Mullings, systems manager for the bankruptcy court.

"It's a simple repair, but the person who would do it has been on leave," Mullings said, noting that the government computer system wasn't damaged so there will be no cost to taxpayers.

She also said there was no data lost.

The hackers left a note at the bottom of the defaced site that read, "no file has been deleted... or looked at..."

While the hacked site, located at racer.nvb.uscourts.gov, was inaccessible for nearly three days, the main U.S. Bankruptcy Court site, located at a different web address, appeared to be unaffected.

That was because the main site was protected by a firewall and the hacked site was not, Mullings said.

"We can't fit everything within the firewall," she said. "And having some things on the outside allows us to see the vulnerabilities, which we can patch before anything damaging happens."

Mullings said this week's hacking incident was one of the most high profile in Nevada in recent memory.

In November 1999 the Nevada Secretary of State's website was defaced by a hacker and shut down for five hours. Secretary of State Dean Heller said at the time no permanent damage resulted.

High-Tech Hate Crew has hacked into 565 websites in the past 14 months, said records maintained by the Alldas defacement archive.