Jihadists Attack Vatican Web Site

29 Nov. 2006 ~ As thousands of Turks took to the streets to protest the ongoing visit of Pope Benedict XVI to their country, the Church was already dealing with another threat from angry Muslims – a cyberattack on the Vatican Web site.

An appeal to Jihadist hackers was sent out through Web forums linked to al-Qaida and was posted on two of the Web sites that publish messages from the terrorist organization.

"The leadership of the electronic Jihad has decided to undertake a grand attack against the official Vatican site following the insults by the Pope against our Prophet," the statement read in Arabic, referring to remarks the Pope made in a September 12 speech.

"With Allah's blessing, the attack will succeed thanks to the help of our brothers if we all attack simultaneously. We ask all our brothers to be present at the hour of the attack for a joint action, because they (Catholics) have struck our religion. They must be fought and deserve to be attacked and not only on their Internet site.”

Threats against the Vatican Web site and the Catholic Church in general began shortly after the Pope’s speech, in which he quoted a 14th century emperor’s description of Islam as a religion spread by the sword.

The first attack on the Vatican Web site by hackers came on October 11, but Vatican computer experts were able to detect and eliminate the incursions and no noticeable damage occurred.

Police reported that dozens of hackers attempted to access the Vatican servers after that first appeal, but they too were apparently thwarted by Vatican security, and no signs of sabotage appeared on the site.

Vatican security officials aren’t sure what the hackers seek to accomplish, but suspect they aim to create a "denial of service” for visitors to the site by flooding the Vatican servers with messages from thousands of computers controlled by hackers.

Programs specifically created for the attacks were available for downloading by would-be hackers on the Jihadist Web sites.

The Vatican Web site was created under the Pontificate of John Paul II and supervised by an American Vatican official, Archbishop John P. Foley.

Foley, the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, obtained the .va domain to "let people be assured that whatever messages came from that .va address were authentic,” he explained in a speech in Rome on September 23.

"Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous people who get seemingly Catholic Internet addresses and provide either misinformation or even pornography on those sites . . . The danger of usurpers and hackers can exist on some sites which wish to appear Catholic but are not.”

Vatican electronic defenses include a firewall named Michael, after the Archangel who was said to have battled Satan. Other Vatican servers for the Web site are named Gabriel and Raphael. So far, the Vatican’s virtual Archangels have won the battle against cyberterrorists.

CFPA: Well it looks like Allah didn't bless these attacks and the Archangels won. It never ceases to amaze us that this Allah the Muzis are always asking favors from has left the Islamic world so ignorant, poverty sticken and unblessed places on the planet. As for these Moslem-maniacs getting upset every time someone exposes some truth about their so-called religion we say that's too bad....it is a historical fact that Islam was spread by the sword and even today it is still being spread in the same manner though the sword has been replaced with guns and bombs.

Posted: 29 Nov 2006