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Telegraph website hit by hackers
April 16, 2010
Hackers have managed to infiltrate a section of The Daily Telegraph's
website and replace its holiday and food and drink pages with a picture
of a Romanian flag.
The media group came under fire from hackers who were said to have been
motivated to launch the attack after the Telegraph referred to Romanians
as gypsies, according to The Guardian.
The site's short breaks and wine and dine sections were replaced with
the flag, claiming to be for "Romanian National Security", and there
were several other comments in Romanian. The post also linked to a
Russian site that plays an audio recording called The Lonely Shepherd.
The only text in English read: "Guess what, gypsies aren't Romanians,
morons."
The embarrassing security breach comes about a year after a partner
website of the Telegraph Media Group was hacked, exposing the email
addresses of registered users on part of that site.
Internet forum Hackersblog, which has exposed the ease with which
several prominent websites can be hacked, claimed all databases at the
Telegraph are vulnerable to SQL injection attack.
Tony Osborn, a security expert at Symantec, said in order to protect
websites from such attacks, companies must ensure web fronting systems
are secure.
"Simple measures include applying basic information risk management,
prioritising web-facing systems and ensuring patches are always up to
date," he said.
Copyright © Press Association 2010
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