The attack was one of the largest, most systematic defacements of worldwide government servers on the Web, Attrition.org said on its site. The sites were replaced with the hackers' logo and the message "presents... the largest .gov and .mil mass . . .
The attack was one of the largest, most systematic defacements of worldwide government servers on the Web, Attrition.org said on its site. The sites were replaced with the hackers' logo and the message "presents... the largest .gov and .mil mass defacement in the history of mankind."

While the defacement message posted was the same on all Web sites targeted, the attack was unusual in that this was not a mass defacement of a series of government Web sites within an agency or even within a country -- but of three different nations in different time zones all at the same time with all sites remaining defaced for a period longer than 15 minutes, Attrition.org said.

Among the U.S. sites defaced were those of the Republican Caucus for the California Legislature and the Alaskan Office for the Department of Interior, according to Attrition.org, which has mirrored the defaced sites on its servers