Computer-security experts said Saturday the likelihood of a broad attack on Internet computers yesterday was low after a contest for computer hackers appeared to fizzle.
The contest in which hackers were challenged to deface thousands of Web sites was announced this week by an underground group at the Web site defacers-challenge.com.
The Web site promised 500 megabytes of disk storage to the hacker who managed to bring down the largest number of sites during a designated six-hour period starting yesterday morning.
The site, however, was disabled Wednesday night, leaving some to speculate that the contest is off, but computer security officials are still keeping their guard up in case hacks are attempted.
"I believe the probability of an attack is 80-20 -- 80 percent that it won't happen and 20 percent that it will," said Kevin Mitnick, a notorious US computer hacker who spent time in jail after carrying on a two-year computer hacking spree that ended with his arrest in 1995.
Mitnick, who was released from jail in 2000 and now runs his own computer-security company, told CNN everyone needs to be vigilant and protect computer systems regardless of the hype about the hacking challenge.
There is skepticism among computer-security officials over whether the hacking challenge will take place because law-enforcement officials and the public have been alerted, and hackers typically enjoy a surprise attack, Mitnick said.
The cyberthreat also left government security experts unfazed when it was revealed during the week.
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