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ALSO: Hackers put racist, anti-government slogans on embassy site

In this story: Group linked to Pentagon hacker Racist comments a 'mistake' RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- Hackers who hit a Web site for the U.S. Embassy in China are part of an 13-member group that has claimed responsibility for altering more than two dozen Web sites this year and chooses targets to show up their security flaws.

The group, called Level Seven Crew, claimed responsibility Tuesday for replacing the Embassy page so it displayed racist comments and made references to bombing China and a "war of skill" started by the FBI.

The State Department failed to return a request for comment. The site was restored by Wednesday.

"We were bored, so we decided to deface it and prove a point that the site was insecure," said 'vent,' a Level Seven member who responded to a message sent to an e-mail address on the hacked site.

"We patched it up and after we were all through, we defaced it," vent said. "We didn't harm the box though because we aren't a malicious group."

The Level Seven Crew's Web site claims the group has hacked sites put up by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Atlanta Braves, Linux headquarters, Sheraton Hotels, Beyond Software and Santa's Official Page.

Group linked to Pentagon hacker

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Level Seven started several years ago and lost five members due to recent FBI raids of the group Global Hell, some of whose members also worked with Level Seven, vent wrote.

The Justice Department announced last month that Chad Davis, 19, a founder of Global Hell, was arrested and charged in a federal complaint with hacking into the U.S. Army computer and "maliciously" interfering with the communications system.

The complaint said he gained illegal access to an Army Web page and modified the contents. Davis, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, also was accused of gaining access to an unclassified Army network and removing and modifying its computer files to prevent detection.

Davis's arrest is part of a nationwide investigation of Global Hell that has been under way for several months and has turned up more than a dozen other suspects, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Although investigators suggest that more arrests may be coming, Davis' apprehension shows the difficulty of tracking down computer criminals -- even those, like Davis, who are relatively brazen, according to federal law enforcement officials and computer security experts.

Racist comments a 'mistake'

As for Level Seven, just one of dozens of loose-knit groups of hackers worldwide, some of its members work as security consultants, vent wrote. This seems to be typical of hackers -- many work in the information technology industry.

Racist comments posted on the hacked embassy site were a "mistake," vent wrote. Some members of Level Seven are Chinese and the words were meant as an internal joke that inadvertently was posted for the hack.

The FBI actively searches for hackers, arriving at their homes with search warrants and sometimes carting away their computers -- activities Level Seven calls on some of its hacked pages a "war."

But Level 7's members are "good hackers," vent wrote, because "Level Seven secures the box without touching the files on it."

The group knows that hacking is wrong, vent wrote, but will continue to do so to illustrate security lapses. "We will succeed. We will thrive," vent wrote.