Security officials had worried about widespread Net attacks. Computer hackers vying in a global contest on Sunday defaced a slew of Web sites, but the damage was confined to the Internet’s backwater of small, unsecured sites, security officials said. THE “DEFACER’S CHALLENGE” got off to a quick start on Sunday with 300 attacks reported minutes after the 0600 GMT official start, said Roberto Preatoni, founder of Estonia-based Zone-H.org, a site that tracks hack attacks. “There were no big names,” he said. But he added his own site, www.zone-h.org, was knocked offline for much of the day because of a high volume of legitimate visitors and apparent attempts by hackers to bog down his computer servers. According to the contest Web site www.defacers-challenge.com, which was taken offline last week, hackers were urged to prove their skills by defacing as many Web sites as possible during a six-hour span on Sunday. Points were awarded for the number and type of computer servers they infiltrated, the rules stated. Full Story