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Hackers hit road bridge website with 'porn ads'



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Published Date: 08 February 2008
COMPUTER hackers planted pop-up ads for pornography on the Forth Road Bridge's website, it was reported last night.
IT experts revealed that the bridge operator's site for drivers had been turned into a "filth jamboree".

Web users are believed to been redirected to a Turkish site as a result of the security breach.

It is thought that the incident could have left some computers which visited the website infected with malicious software.

The Register website said the attack by hackers is thought to have happened about a week ago.

Officials with the Forth Estuary Transport Authority last night confirmed that its website was closed for several hours on Wednesday following the security breach.

A spokesman said: "We took our website offline for a few hours as a precautionary measure after a security breach on the servers of the external company that hosts the website.

"The issue has now been resolved and the web-hosting company is reviewing its security arrangements."

Fife-based IT firm Roundtrip Solutions, which investigated the incident, said: "This highlights how a legitimate website can be compromised to serve nasties to visitors."





The full article contains 194 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 07 February 2008 10:14 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Forth Bridges
 
1

paulr,

edinburgh 08/02/2008 08:15:58
A "filth jamboree" so speaks the moral minority......
2

Bob Charles,

08/02/2008 08:47:56

Wouldn't it be absolutely amazing if Roundtrip Solutions handily have a product to sell after uncovering and publicising this 'disaster'?
3

Nikostratos,

08/02/2008 10:19:05
Ooeer! i say
4

Ard Righ,

The Rock Of Edinburgh 08/02/2008 10:46:42
Stasis is soooo last millenium
5

John A Thomson,

Fife 08/02/2008 11:16:14
@ Bob Charles
Sorry to disappoint you Bob, we don't have a product to sell. The online media who first reported this interpreted the story one way and the Scotsman's interpretation of that has lost the real message of the story.

Bottomline: if anyone visited the FETA website with a vulnerable Windows system then there is a fair chance you system got trashed! Don't you think that is news worthy? We certainly do!

Please go read the full story then you may understand how and why we got involved:

http://www.roundtripsolutions.com/blog/2008/02/06/317/forth-road-bridge-website-hacked/

http://explabs.blogspot.com/search/label/feta%20hacked%20neosploit%20bbc

It is actually quite disappointing that the Scotsman has diluted the story so much that the original source isn't easily accessible.

All we were doing was protecting our existing customers and members of the general public who may have been affected. We made no financial gain from doing this, nor are we likely to do so in the future!

We informed FETA IT staff as soon as our analysis and investigation had confirmed the nature of the hack. We only have praise for how they handled the incident during those first few hours after they were informed. They were extremely professional, taking the website down within minutes thereby ensuring no other visitors had their computers trashed by goodness knows what. They are just as much a victim here! A victim of a criminal hacking gang and a victim of poor service from a 3rd party supplier.

By sheer coincidence, another security consultant and I will be talking to the Institution of Engineering and Technology about IT Security next week. This talk is free and open to all. We won't get paid for that and since we are nearly 60 mins travelling time away, it is unlikely that we'll see any financial return through new contracts or jobs. We tend to stick to protecting and serving the people of Fife!

http://www.theiet.org/local/uk/scotland/southeast/computer-
6

John A Thomson,

Fife 08/02/2008 11:17:40
Oops! The URL of the talk got cut off. Here goes again:

http://www.theiet.org/local/uk/scotland/southeast/computer-security.cfm
7

Amparo de Glasgow,

08/02/2008 15:57:33
Oy oy oy ...
Que pena verdad.
Ochone ochone ochone Lachie

... can't think of any reason why porno-peeps would attack a Scottish Bridge's site???

Visualising a list of visual metaphors here !!
... picture a screen saying Processing ...

Could it be the "Bridge of Sighs" ???

Or the Fallopian Tubes being
... the bridge
... which carries sp-oi-rm
... to the females eggs ( via vag-oy-na and uterus)
... to get fertilised??


Nahh this is a wee bit to obscure and 'wacky' for me right now.
8

JulesF,

08/02/2008 17:54:12
Cheers for the thankyou Scotsman, seeing as I gifted you the Registers story in a comment on the bridge delays thread yesterday.
9

Man of Reason,

08/02/2008 18:36:39
#9 if you read some of the comments on this site there actually seem to be a number of people who have some kind of personal vendetta against those who run the bridge. Today's thread on high wind delays featured a particularly nasty personal attack (now removed).

Anti-toll campaigners spring to mind. Also pro-tunnel campaigners, although heaven knows what they have against FETA since it was Transport Scotland who did all the studies and made the decision on the new Forth crossing. Maybe they think all bridges and those who run them are bad!

Or maybe it was just someone venting frustration at being held up in a queue after that lorry blew over last week. The wind doesn't have a website, so you may as well hack the bridge's site instead!

10

John A Thomson,

Fife 08/02/2008 18:39:47
@JulesF

On behalf of Roundtrip Solutions and the good folks of the world who use the FETA website, let me say "Thank you".

Take care out their folks, the bad guys are out to get ya!
11

John A Thomson,

Fife 08/02/2008 18:48:42
@ Man of Reason
The reality probaby isn't quite so "Mission Impossible"! Hacking websites and using them for criminal purposes is now VERY BIG BUSINESS.

People let's get away from the one porn pop-up, which we were unable to confirm, and think about the implication of visitors computers being put at risk from all manner of malware: viruses, spyware and rootkits. Vulnerable systems wouldn't have had a chance!!! This is the real story here.
12

JulesF,

11/02/2008 15:12:20
#14 As a network admin i wholly agree !

'Don't feed the monkeys' is my motto.

 

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