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Lloyds of London (twice), Met Office follow Railtrack UK in hack attack

Concerted hack of sites worldwide underway

Updated The latest site to be attacked by hackers bent on leaving their mark on the 21st century was Lloyds of London, which was hit earlier on today. The site was fixed, but then was hacked anew only a few hours later. The hackers posted the following message in their original hack: "Greets to #hackuk, #rootworm, TYRANT MY MAN, flame, h2so4, SuperSheep, solarflux, crack pyrate and every1 else" The message continued: "Another site owned by Mister-X, along side Mystique - The UK caught the net boom, but it forgot about security - We are just pointing this out". But just a few hours afterwards, the hackers made their point by bringing the site down again, this time with the message: ""OK, I have owned you once already today. You obviously didn't read my message, or are just plain stupid. - So, I will put it in simple term - SECURE YOUR SITE - X". At the time of this update (14:28 UT), the site was unavailable. At this point, you might care to look at this E Commerce Times article about insurance against hacking with underwriting obtainable from.... The UK Met Office at this page also appears to have been attacked, although the problem is now fixed. It apparently had, as a background GIF, a porn site banner ad. The attacks do highlight the fact that Web sites are still pretty flakey on the security front. For other sites that we learned have been attacked over the last few days, read below. ® 31 December 1999 Hackers have broken into the UK Railtrack site, causing the company, which looks after the infrastructure of Britain's railway system, to take the site down. The hack occurred late yesterday evening, with technicians struggling to restore normal service this morning. But the hacks seem to be turning into an epidemic. The Eidos site here, and latterly the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is here, also appear to have suffered attacks today. The Core site was attacked by a group describing itself as the "Y2K" crew, while the same "Y2K" crew also hacked the Dea site. After the Railtrack pages were broken into, a message appeared on the site saying: "Sorry, but due to year 2000 compatability (sic) problems there will be no trains operating between 31.12.99 and 02.01.00. "Web design by Team Spl0it" When this link was clicked on, the following message appeared: "Team Spl0it have owned you railtrack. "It seems that your trains and your computers have something in common...does it not? "Greets to #HackUK, #Rootworm, Illusions Team, Domz, Trionix, d0c, h2so4, Slacker, Dred, sf, All the sheep in Wales(Beaaaaven) and all of the Railtrack directors." We attempted to contact Railtrack's UK office for more information but the phone lines were constantly engaged. Railtrack managed to get the site back on the iron road at 11.10am, UK time. The number of sites that readers have notified us have been so far hacked today suggests a concerted attack is underway.® * Sydney, Australia. In a few hours time the year 2000 hits Australia, and executives at the rapid transit system are allowing the trains to run for a couple of hours over the crucial period, but the doors of the trains will not be opened to avoid any potential Y2K problems...

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