USDA site hacked 
                By Reuters
                June 11, 1997, 11:05 a.m. PT 

                WASHINGTON--The Agriculture Department's
                Foreign Agricultural Service shut down access to
                its home page yesterday after a major security
                breach was discovered, a department aide said. 

                "It's a big, huge problem," Ed Desrosiers, a
                computer specialist in USDA's Farm Service
                Agency, told Reuters. "We can't guarantee
                anything's clean anymore." 

                Someone broke into system and began "sending
                out a lot of messages" to other "machines" on the
                Internet, Desrosiers said. 

                The volume of traffic was so great, "we were taking
                down machines" and began receiving complaints,
                he said. 

                "It's not worth our time to try to track down" the
                culprit, Desrosiers said. "Instead, we're just going
                to massively increase security." 

                A popular feature on the FAS home page is the
                search function for "attache reports," which are filed
                by overseas personnel and provide assessments on
                crop conditions around the world. Although not
                official data, the reports provide key information
                that goes into USDA's monthly world
                supply-and-demand forecasts. 

                While Desrosiers said it could be next week before
                the page was open to outside users again, a new
                page was up today. "Welcome to the redesigned
                FAS home page," it read. "This site, while still
                under construction, will serve as an interim home
                page while we make improvements to the main
                Web server. Please excuse the dust."

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                reserved.