Computer enthusiasts known as Sm0ked Crew whacked the 'Business' page of the venerable New York Times early Friday morning, escalating a spate of defacements with which they plagued minor servers belonging to Intel and Compaq yesterday.

In each attack one of several known weaknesses in Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Server) was exploited, though the earlier attacks admittedly lacked the panache and entertainment value of the NYT defacement, being simple text pages.

But Friday's achievement went well beyond the former, incorporating HTML, a .MID audio file, and graphics.

"Sm0ked crew is back and better than ever," the NYT page announces.

And then a bit of sysadmin taunting: "Well, admin I'm sorry to say but you just got sm0ked by splurge. Don't be scared though, everything will be all right, first fire your current security advisor, he sux."

Shouts are offered to attrition.org, which has been mirroring Sm0ked Crew's work of late, and to Downkaos, datagram, Italguy, gorro, Silver Lords, Hi-Tech Hate, Fux0r, prime suspectz, WFD, and Hackweiser (Yo, where's The Reg's proppies??).

Finally there's special recognition of "Rev, for teaching me how to hack IIS, you da man!!!"

Sm0ked Crew is accepting fan/hate mail at this address. ®