[June 28, 2006]

Westminster Vietnamese-language Web sites hacked

(Record, The (Hackensack, NJ) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jun. 27--The FBI is investigating a hacker attack that took place last month on the Web site of Nguoi Viet Daily News, a newspaper based in Westminster, as well as similar attacks on other Vietnamese-language sites.

Laura Eimiller, a FBI spokeswoman, said unknown hackers posted "pro-Ho Chi Minh" content on nguoi-viet.com and defaced other sites. No arrests have been made, she said. It is a federal crime to gain unauthorized access to a computer used in interstate commerce, she said.

Dat Phan, chairman of the board of Nguoi Viet Daily News, said the attacks began in early May when hackers "tried to jam us with hits" to slow access to the site, in what is known as a "denial of service" attack.

Around May 18, the hackers uploaded content to parts of Nguoi Viet's site, Phan said. "They put a signature, a kind of logo," claiming the site had been hacked by "ViETHACKER," Phan said.

Nguoi Viet responded by taking its Web site off line for a few days to improve its security and clean up compromised files, Phan said. While the site was down, hackers contacted Nguoi Viet's domain registration company and managed to have the registration for the site transferred to them, he said.

The hackers, then in full control of the newspaper's Web address, posted content that included a picture of a Vietnamese flag and a picture of a baby, according to a screen image provided by Phan.

A message posted in Vietnamese said, in part: "We are the ones who have committed horrible acts against this country (Vietnam). Even if we died 1,000 times, we cannot erase the sins committed. How did we let our country get this way? Don't listen to the people who want to sell (out) the country."

After about a week, Nguoi Viet was able to regain control of its Web address by contacting the domain registration company, Phan said.

During the week when it lost control of its Web site, the newspaper created a new Web address and posted a temporary site, using other local Vietnamese media to spread the word.

An analysis of server logs indicated the hacker attacks came from Vietnam, Phan said. The attacks roughly coincided with Ho Chi Minh's birthday on May 19.

Cuong Nguyen, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Embassy, said he had no knowledge of the incident.

Phan provided a list of other U.S.-based Vietnamese-language Web sites that he said were hacked around the same time. Eimiller, the FBI spokeswoman, confirmed the agency was looking into "a series of defacements" of Web sites.

One of the sites, danchimviet.com, which is based in Dallas, was repeatedly attacked between May 26 and June 10, said Viet Tran, a Webmaster on the site.

The hackers were able to make subtle yet potentially confusing changes to the site, such as inserting sentences into existing news articles, a feat Tran called "very sophisticated."

"That makes me think that these guys are serious. They're not average hackers poking around for fun," Tran said.

Most of the content posted by the hackers on danchimviet.com didn't betray any overt political agenda, except that they linked to late communist leader Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence from 1945, Tran said.

The Web site of Viet Bao, a Westminster-based daily newspaper, wasn't hacked, said Chan Le, who is in charge of advertising for Viet Bao.

Hacking of Web sites has decreased in recent years as security technology has improved, said Marc Maiffret, a hacking expert at eEye Digital Security in Aliso Viejo. That's why hackers have turned to methods such as tricking domain registrars to transfer the registration for a Web address, he said.

"Any business should be taking advantage of e-mail encryption and extended verification processes that most of these domain registrars have these days," Maiffret said.

Register staff writers Katherine Nguyen and Hang Nguyen contributed to this report.

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