Modern-day graffiti has moved beyond scribbles on monuments and subway cars and now takes the form of defacing websites. This may be done for personal notoriety, the challenge, or a political message just as with traditional defacement of property, but this new form of exploit is no joking matter. In addition to the obvious economic threats of hacking there is also real physical danger which can be caused by hacking into computer networks. The General Accounting Office estimates that 64% of hacker attacks on the Department of Defense were successful in 1995 and more shocking, the majority of attacks were undetected. In 1999, a sixteen year old juvenile from Florida was able to intercept electronic communications on military computer networks and break into the NASA computer systems successfully forcing them to shut down for 21 days in July until the security breach was ended. He was subsequently sentenced to six months in a juvenile detention facility.

Recommended Links:

Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute: CERT Coordination Center
Major reporting center for Internet security problems.

NOTE: Most hacking site are instructional in nature and, therefore, are not provided here.