Cyber-vandalism has not gone away

We continue to report and comment upon that the vast majority of malicious activity is now for ‘profit’.  What once started out as ‘look how clever I am’ hacking and goofing around has morphed into an increasing focus on using these technical skills and techniques to make money. However, there is still cyber vandalism out there.  One example of this that occurred  in the past few days was a high profile hijacking of sites owned by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN as it is more commonly known.
 
To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer – a so called Unique Reference Link (URL). That URL has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn’t have one global Internet. Late last week, visitors to the ICANN site were redirected to a site, wherein they saw this message:
 
  “You think that you control the domains but you don’t! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don’t you believe us? haha :) (Lovable Turkish hackers group)”
 
The attack was from a group called NetDevilz, who are thought to be Turkish. Now, from what can be seen, there seems to have been no other malicious content served up from the site that users were redirected to. This was a very public embarrassment for the organisation, who, is responsible for ensuring that the URL you type into your browser takes you to the site you think you are going to.  It did not take long for ICANN to spot what had happened and to start to rectify it. I am sure it was all very frustrating and time-consuming: which really is just what vandalism of any sort, whether in the real-world, or in the virtual world, is all about.

July 1, 2008 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

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One Response to “Cyber-vandalism has not gone away”

  1. make money online on July 21st, 2008

    make money online…

    Very well said. Thanks for your regular updates….

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