Cyber Criminals Hacked Websites of Parish Council

Two websites of Parish Council (UK) were attacked by hackers who were using them to send phishing mails and direct users to porn websites.

In first case, the attackers used the website of Chiddingstone Parish Council to exploit the users of this website. Emails which appeared as they had come from the site were sent to deceive people into divulging their private details; however, the phishing has now stopped.

John Hubbard, the Web hoster of the site, has informed the Parish Council that it seems that a connection was made to chiddingstone.org through an exploit in the code from a system connection in Nigeria and the hacker achieved a wider access, as reported by THESISKENT on July 6, 2009.

He further added that the hacker downloaded a bulk mailer code that could be employed to send bulk spam mails to several thousand addresses, soliciting them to change their passwords or point them through a link to the phishing site made within chiddingstone.org.

Mr. John informed that out of several thousand mails addresses that were scammed using this method, the attackers expect to get some to enter their details and then their bank accounts will be hacked.

He also said that when the problem was discovered, the website was instantly shutdown to avert further troubles. He said that as soon as he came back from his holidays, the files and directories of hackers were removed and the site was restored for general access.

In another case, East Peckham Parish Council found in the last week of June that their site had been infected by porn-pushing system. This incident came into the light when parents of a girl, who discovered links to X-rated pictures, informed about the incident to authorities.

Just after getting an unidentified tip-off, the council discovered that the gallery page of its website had been associated to adult sites and sites selling sex toys and Viagra. Later on, the chairman of the council states that although he did not inspect the links, they were removed after their detection in a short time period.

Further, hackers frequently target government sites worldwide. In a similar news, viruses hit the computer systems of the Rensselaer County (New York, USA) office last month (June), damaging 20 servers and 200 desktop systems.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 7/21/2009