Internet archives show that postings attributed to the Muslim Hackers Club first surfaced about five years ago. One 1998 posting by club leader “Ibn X” urged Muslim hackers to “Attack now: go, go, go: hit the enemy where it hurts.” Bush officials worry that Islamic hackers will sooner or later graduate from pranks and vandalism to cyber-terrorism. Computer terrorists, experts say, could cause widespread disruption, or even loss of life, by interfering with essential services like telephone networks and power grids. Earlier this month the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a secret warning that the Muslim Hackers Club included experts who had conducted classes on how to mount terror attacks on computer networks. The FBI and the DIA believe the club’s main objective is to develop software tools that can then be used by other Islamic groups to attack Western targets. Some U.S. officials think a serious cyberattack by Islamic militants is inevitable. “It’s not a question of if,” said an intelligence source. “It’s a question of when.”
Anti-America and anti-Israel hacker attacks attributed to Islamic militants have already gone beyond schoolboy pranks. Two years ago a hacker called DoctorNuker, founder of the Pakistani Hackerz Club, got inside databases maintained by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and published the identities of thousands of the group’s supporters. Shortly after 9-11, DocttorNuker hacked into a U.S. company’s Web site and posted a pro bin Laden screed: “The US government has just tasted what the Muslims are tasting for years!” Last November, federal prosecutors in Maryland obtained a grand jury indictment accusing a Pakistani named Misbah Khan of being DoctorNuker. But some experts question whether the Feds fingered the right person. Only last month someone calling him-self DoctorNuker was credited in an Internet message for defacing the site helpingisrael.com. Efforts to reach DoctorNuker and the Muslim Hackers Club for comment failed when mail servers returned the messages undelivered.
