Hackers were able to penetrate a Federal Aviation Administration system earlier this week and download unpublished information on airport passenger screening activities, federal officials confirmed Thursday.

Styling themselves "The Deceptive Duo," the hackers on Wednesday publicly defaced an FAA server used by what was the administration's Civil Aviation Security organization, which until recently was responsible for supervising passenger screening at U.S. airports. There, the intruders posted a mission statement vowing to expose America's poor state of cyber security for the good of the nation.

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