Tech Tuesday – What’s The Hacking Problem?

I took a little time away from the computer this past weekend for the holiday. Spent it with the family and had a great Memorial Day. But when I get back there is another story about someone getting hacked. This time it was the home of Bert and Ernie, PBS, being hacked. Why PBS? Who did Mr. Suffelupagus offend? And more importantly why?

Well, it appears that the same group that hacked Sony Muisc in Japan, hacked PBS as well. Lulz Security, or LulzSec as they are being called now, has hacked Fox.com, the mentioned Sony Music and now PBS. Why the Public Broadcasting Service? It looks to be revenge for a story Frontline did on Wikileaks.

They claim to not be affiliated with Anonymous, a hacker group who has been in the news for it's cyber attacks on organizations that have tried to shut down Wikileaks as well as going up against the religion Scientology.

LulzSec hacked into some PBS websites and was able to gather login info for PBS employees of the website and also posted a fake news story that Tupac was alive and well and living in a small town in New Zealand. They also posted network, server, and database details and logins, as well as user login data for some PBS staff and contractors. They proceeded to then post about their hack on Twitter. Even taunting the PBS admins about it as well.

PBS advised affiliates, which local station WMHT is one of, in a statement that was sent out after the hack was discovered. According to PBS, no personal info or email addresses were compromised. The only thing to do now, is wait and see who is next on their list.

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