Friday 23 August 2013

Anonymous Algeria hacks Albany Democrats' website

In Albany County, Democrats are used to having the upper hand.
But the party's website appears to have been the target of a group of overseas hackers with a reputation for defacing thousands of websites to spread their pro-Palestine message.
The site, www.albanycountydems.org, was apparently forced offline by the attack and remained offline Monday. In place of its normal headline in Google's search results was this: "Hacked by Anonymous Algeria," followed by the Twitter accounts of activists associated with the group.

Party Chairman Matthew Clyne said the problem was brought to his attention late last week and that the party is working to get the site running again.
As for why the Democrats' site was hit, Jim Hendler, head of RPI's Department of Computer Science, said the vandalism has the hallmarks of an increasingly common though unsophisticated type of attack and probably has one of three explanations.
Because the group is known for targeting hundreds of sites at a time, Hendler said it's likely its members were exploiting a flaw in a certain type of program and victimizing sites that use that software.
Alternatively, Hendler said, some hackers will target sites that include certain keywords — or, in the case of the more widely known Anonymous hacker collective, take aim at high-profile sites for specific political reasons.
Earlier this month, Anonymous attacked sites run by the Israeli government.
Anonymous Algeria, however, has a reputation for seeking out softer digital targets, Hendler said.
Last month, the group took credit for defacing more than 1,000 sites in the name of the Palestinian cause, many of them Chinese, which Hendler said suggests they're not being specifically targeted based on keywords or content.
"It's sort of like robbing liquor stores vs. robbing banks vs. robbing Fort Knox," Hendler said. "This would be the equivalent of liquor stores. It's an easy target and there are lot of them."

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