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The Bush administration said on Wednesday it was investigating this week's coordinated attack on the Internet, but played down speculation it was carried out by terrorists.
``There is an investigation under way to determine who is responsible for the attacks,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
But when asked if cyber-terrorism was suspected, Fleischer told reporters, ``I'm not aware there's anything that would lead anybody in that direction. History has shown that many of these attacks actually come from the hacker community.''
Cyber-security concerns have grown since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and government officials have warned that rogue nations were preparing strikes that threatened to cripple the computer-run infrastructure.
This week's attack was launched around 5 p.m. EDT Monday on the 13 root servers that make up the Internet's Domain Name System and lasted about an hour.
The so-called ``distributed denial of service'' attack congested some traffic, but largely failed, the officials said.
Such attacks are designed to temporarily shut down servers by overwhelming them with too much traffic, usually coming from drone computers around the Internet.
The Domain Name System -- which matches up the long numerical codes computers use to identify computers attached with the Web addresses people type in -- and the root servers it relies on for address information, have long been considered the Achilles heel of the Internet, capable of shutting down the Internet if attacked.
``The attack Monday was unique in that it targeted Domain Name Servers,'' Fleischer said.
``But the method of the attack was nothing new. There was some degradation of service. However, nothing failed and providers were able to mitigate the attacks very quickly.''
Fleischer said the FBI's cyber division was aware of the attacks as they occurred, and touted U.S. efforts to improve Internet security in coordination with the private sector.
``Many new protections have been put in place,'' Fleischer said. ``There is a recognition that the Internet is a vital part of our economy and the world's economy.''
Reflecting heightened concern about network vulnerabilities after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. Senate voted earlier this month to boost federal spending on computer security.
The measure, authorizing more than $900 million over five years for research, scholarships and other incentives, will likely become law as it is virtually identical to a cyber-security plan passed by the House of Representatives by a wide margin in February. The Bush administration has indicated its support.
And last month the administration unveiled a draft report on making the country's cyberspace safe from attack. But critics said voluntary measures did not offer enough security.
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