The Changing Face of Web Sites

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.internetnews.com/intl-news/article/0,,6_533881,00.html

By the InternetNews.com Staff
December 13, 2000

[SOUTH AFRICA] What do Renault, Computicket and Statistics South
Africa have in common? They are all South African sites that have been
defaced at some point this year.

Other companies that had a brief but startling make-over this year
include Nintendo South Africa, World Online and the Institute for
Marketing Management.

While damaging to a company's image and a headache for the
administrator, site defacement is a relatively benign form of computer
crime. If your site merely gets defaced, with no information stolen or
viruses introduced into your system, count yourself lucky.

For example, a credit card verification company, CreditCards.com, was
cracked by a possibly East European hacker, who stole 60,000 credit
card numbers and tried to extort money from the company. When the
company refused to give in to the blackmail, he posted the numbers on
the net and contacted press and customers.

And no-one's forgotten the 12 day Microsoft crack. But this kind of
computer crime is more akin to espionage and burglary than site
defacement.

Site defacement is a statement, typically describing the prowess of
the hacker; but as the net advances it is becoming a powerful
political tool. Hacktivists defaced both Republican and Democratic Web
sites in the U.S. And in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict,
hackers and crackers are defacing Web sites on both sides with
political messages.

The Internet has introduced a powerful means of information
dissemination into the hands of the public. You don't have to deface a
site in order to protest -you can set up a site that delivers your
point of view. But if you can deface a popular site, you gain instant
publicity, delivering your message, whatever it is, by piggybacking on
the work done by the unfortunate entity.

For those who'd like to see what hackers/crackers do to Web sites,
defaced pages are mirrored at Attrition.org. They also provide
statistics and breakdown per country.

http://www.attrition.org/

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