Hackers Compromise Website Forum of Dawkins, Send Spam

A website used as a discussion forum and operated by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, was hacked on August 17, 2009.

Internet criminals compromised the forum and used it to dispatch spam messages that invited members to join a warez website. The forum's members on RichardDawkins.net got an e-mail apparently from the admin of the forum strangely asking them to sign up to the warez site.

The spam mail said - the message is from an administrator handling the RichardDawkins.net forum, and adds that if the recipient finds the message as spam, or one with comments that are offensive or abusive, then he may alert the board's webmaster at a given address.

However, RichardDawkins.net posted a message confirming that the incident was a hack and added that administrators of the site were working for the forum's restoration. On August 18, 2009, the forum returned to its normal state.

On another section of the forum, admins informed that security of the site had been strengthened and that they notified the FBI about the attack.

Nevertheless, it isn't clear what private data the hackers gained during the assault and the method they used for the purpose. Rik Ferguson, Security Consultant at Trend Micro, cleverly remarked that the attack demonstrated the absence of any "Intelligent Design" on the discussion site, as reported by Register on August 18, 2009.

Ferguson added that had the attackers managed to reach the administrator's account, they could probably have viewed any user data containing e-mail addresses and passwords. Therefore, he suggested everyone who had an account with Dawkins' forum to review their passwords. If they were also using the same password for other utilities, then members should change it instantly.

Meanwhile, the Dawkins forum is well-known for allowing unhindered disparagement of religion, and of championing atheist and humanist views, while the site's status is enhanced with as many as 68,083 members on it.

With website hacking becoming widespread for phishing and spamming, in similar news, a Portuguese site was recently hacked so that amusingly enough visitors could post fake news.

Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 9/4/2009