After announcing plans to fight back against terrorism last week, the consortium of hacking groups calling itself the Dispatchers vandalized two Web sites on Sunday operated by the Special Risks Terrorism Team, a unit of Aon Corporation, a Chicago-based risk management and insurance provider.
An attacker calling himself RaFa replaced the sites home pages with a screed about the mission of the Dispatchers.
Aside from their Web addresses -- Terrorism.uk.com and Terrorismteam.uk.com -- it was not immediately apparent why the two sites were targeted for attack by the Dispatchers.
RaFa, a former member of a defacement group known as World of Hell who recently joined a security group called FateLabs, was not immediately available for comment.
Interrorem, a UK-based security consultancy, captured a mirror of the two defaced Aon-owned sites.
RaFa took credit on Monday for defacing the home page of the Iranian Ministry of Interior. In place of the sites usual doorway content, the attacker posted a doctored photo that shows Osama bin Laden in flames with revolvers pointed at each temple.
Federal law enforcement officials have said bin Laden is believed to be among those responsible for Tuesdays terrorist attacks.
According to a message left behind at the site by RaFa, the hacking group intends to target "every place that poses a possible threat to our safety and the safety of our friends and family all over the world. Our current targets are those of nations who support terrorism and groups of terrorism including but not limited to Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan etc."
Also on Monday, a group called Medanhacking replaced the home page of the Web site operated by Irans Payame Noor University. The crackers posted a message that included the text, "from Medanhacking for US tragedy WTC and support to The dispatcher Team."
According to a directory of Iranian sites, Payame Noor University is the largest state university in Iran and has 186,000 students. Both defaced Iranian sites were still viewable this afternoon.
Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes
