Catholic World News News Feature
Islamic hackers hit Vatican site-- unsuccessfully October 13, 2006
Islamic computer hackers tried to disrupt the Vatican web site earlier this week, but failed, according to a report in the ANSA news service.
In an online forum for militant Muslims, a group announced plans for an assault on the Vatican computer network, which was said to be a form of retribution for Pope Benedict's criticism of Islam in his Regensburg speech. Police later confirmed that there had been a concerted effort by hackers to penetrate the Vatican site, but computer-security experts were able to detect and repel the attack.
The nature of the attempted attack was not clear. Some observers in Rome believed that the Islamic group was planning a "denial of service" attack, in which a web site is bombarded with many thousands of simultaneous visits, overloading the available bandwidth and making it impossible for others to reach the site.
In fact the Vatican site has functioned normally, with minimal noticeable slowdowns, through the week. Vatican security personnel are remaining vigilant in case of another effort by the hackers.
