The ABC has come under cyber attack after Lateline aired an interview with controversial (and a bit racist) Dutch politician, Geert Wilders. Vocally anti-immigration and anti-Islam, Wilders’ appearance on Lateline upset anonymous hacker Phr0zenMyst who took abjection to the ABC’s decision to “[give] a platform for Geert Wilders to spread hatred“.
Phr0zenMyst sought revenge by publishing the usernames, email addresses, and personal information of registered ABC users who had logged in and commented on the website for 2010 program, Making Australia Happy. The wider ramifications hinge on the fact that many of us are wildly unimaginative and lazy when comes to creating our passwords, with the same or minor variations of the same password often employed by users across their various accounts.
Information security analyst Patrick Gray says there is proof the website has been attacked before with passwords turning up on Russian hacking forums two years ago.
“I’d
suggest there’s been multiple attackers who have actually gained access
to this database, so I’d suggest that criminally motivated attackers
had accessed it sometime in 2011,” Mr Gray said. “But now someone with political motivations has accessed that database and published the information to make a political point.”
Regardless of whether you’re a registered ABC user or not, it’s
probably a timely reminder to shake things up a little when it comes to
your online security. One minute you’re lambasting the ABC for (not) being gay (enough), the next, Russian hactivists are dinning out on your dime.
Via ABC, Gizmodo
