GENE RANDALL, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators say this week's hit on CNN's Web site involved a University of California computer. More on that from CNN justice correspondent Pierre Thomas.</s>PIERRE THOMAS, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was this computer system at the University of California at Santa Barbara that was used to launch one of the large cyberattacks this week. And CNN has learned the FBI has targeted undisclosed businesses in California and Oregon, where they think the commands may have originated, to trigger that attack on the CNN.com Web site. Sources familiar with the investigation say the FBI is preparing to seize computers at those locations that they suspect were used to hijack the university computer system.</s>KEVIN SCHMIDT, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA: We have both the situation of having our machine broken into and then used to cause somebody else trouble. We don't like this. We feel very victimized by this.</s>THOMAS: The computers at the California and Oregon sites apparently sent commands to the university computer and possibly other systems to send millions of messages that flooded the CNN Web site. Law enforcement sources declined to identify the businesses targeted by the FBI. And while the computer owners may emerge as suspects, sources point out their computers might have been programmed without their knowledge. Some of the attacks on other possible Web sites apparently also came through West Coast universities, making it clear they're especially vulnerable.</s>PROF. ROBERT SUGAR, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA: It is particularly difficult as universities, where there are very large number of computers being used in research in creative ways.</s>THOMAS: And the university dilemma part of the larger threat.</s>WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So now, vast things are stored in our computers, and transaction of great values occur on the Internet, and what we will -- what you will see here, there will not in an instantaneous solutions to this.</s>THOMAS (on camera): As sign of the seriousness of the cyberthreat, the president holds a summit next week on Internet security, aware that what happened this week could happen again. Pierre Thomas, CNN, Washington.
Investigators Say Attack on CNN's Web Site Involved University of California Computer