HACK-ATTACK HITS VALLEY BUSINESS.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer

CANOGA PARK - Swooping in from Cyberspace, hackers have attacked the San Fernando Valley and inflicted minor damage on at least two Web sites.

The carnage was not widespread and authorities and experts are positive that the culprits are sympathizers of the Chinese government and not those missing FBI laptops running amok.

Evidence suggest that this is a case of mistaken identity, said David Fox, one of the victims and president of Canoga Park-based Direct2Government.com.

His company sells a broad line of food service supplies to U.S. prisons and schools via the Internet.

His theory is that because of the company's name, the renegade hackers thought this was a portal into sensitive government computers.

So when customers accessed the Web site Thursday afternoon to get the latest price on frozen peas they found the message ``Welcome to www.worm.com! Hacked by Chinese!''

The message was in red, the color of the Chinese flag.

``The moment you logged on, you got that thing. I was just horrific,'' Fox said. ``They temporarily put us out of business even though we've got firewalls, passwords and other security measures.'

This same message was also found on the Web site of the economics department at California State University, Northridge.

The incidents are similar to problems reported with a ``code red'' virus, which has infected more than 225,000 businesses nationwide.

Direct2Government was down for a couple of hours so business was conducted over the phone. Fox has no idea how much money was lost because of the service interruption.

He had to send out more than 1,000 e-mails to suppliers, customers and associates to let them know business is back to normal.

Chinese hackers began targeting American computer systems in May in response to the collision between a U.S. spy plane and Chinese jet. Chinese pilot Pang Wei was killed in that incident.

Dan Ingevaldson, who leads a research team for the X-Force Team at Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems, said the culprit that took down Direct2Government.com was a virus called ``the red worm.''

It has hacked into more than 250,000 sites in the last couple of days.

``It uses a vulnerability in the Microsoft Internet information server,'' Ingevaldson said. ``This one seems a little more advanced.''

The virus basically defaces the home page of a Web site and keeps visitors from accessing any of the information.

To fix the problem the site has to be taken down and brought back up, Ingevaldson said.

Fox contacted the Los Angeles office of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, which investigates computer crimes.

Fox did not file a complain so there won't be an investigation, said agency spokeswoman Laura Bosley.

She notes, though, that the FBI is relentless in its pursuit of computer criminals.

On Wednesday, the agency arrested Bret McDanel, 28, of Del Mar, Calif., known as ``Secret Squirrel,'' for hacking into and disrupting the computer system of his former employer, Tornado Development, which provides electronic messaging services to several Fortune 500 companies.

These forays cost the company $325,000.