Pentagon hack no surprise

Meanwhile, with a bill pending in the Senate that is likely to make corporations loath to deploy strong data-scrambling software, the high-profile incident could lend firepower to opponents of the measure.

"It's ironic that the Defense Department has been so vocal against encryption and done so much to retard its use," said Jim Bidzos, president of RSA Data Security, an encryption software maker.

The incident -- in which the Pentagon's computer network was repeatedly breached over the last two weeks -- could help change the minds of lawmakers who support the McCain/Kerrey Senate bill, which would maintain current controls on the export of strong encryption software while calling for a domestic key recovery scheme, he said.

That condition -- which would mean companies would have to turn over the keys to their private communication to police in the event of an investigation -- has drawn harsh criticism from both inside and outside the technology industry.

Opponents of the bill, such as a new coalition of encryption supporters set to launch next week, are gearing up for a fight with supporters, including the likes of FBI Director Louis Freeh.

Law enforcement traditionally has been fearful of encryption, saying it could aid criminals, but the Pentagon incident is likely to be a public relations boon to opponents of the McCain/Kerrey bill, the RSA chief executive believes.

"This Pentagon thing will do more in terms of public awareness than any publicity campaign" that the technology industry could undertake, Bidzos said.

The SANS Institute, a security research and education organization in Bethesda, Md., Thursday released a list of recommendations for improving security on Windows NT-based Web sites, maintaining that many such sites suffer from flaws that leave their passwords open to hackers.

"The surge of hacker attacks" against the Pentagon "is not unique," SANS officials said in a release. Sites that fail to secure certain elements of server and remote access systems are "extending an open invitation both to the contestants in intruder contests and to actual thieves," according to the group.

And the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) at Carnegie Mellon University warns in its latest security bulletin that the proliferation of hacking "tools" is making it easier for less-experienced hackers to take a shot at high-profile networks, including government networks.