Dawkins' website forum hacked to send spam

God! What a nuisance

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Enterprise Security, 18th August 2009 12:11 GMT

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A website forum run by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was compromised on Monday.

Cybercrooks hacked into the forum to send members an invite to sign up to a warez site. A message on RichardDawkins.net confirms the hack and adds that site admins are working to restore the forum to normal. By Tuesday morning the forum was back, and apparently fighting fit.

Members' discussion on the hack can be found in a thread here. Elsewhere on the forum, administrators report that they have bolstered security on the site and reported the attack to the FBI.

It's unclear what personal information was accessed during the attack, much less how it was carried out. Rik Ferguson, a security consultant at Trend Micro, quips the the attack is proof there's no “Intelligent Design” on Dawkins' forum.

Dawkins is noted for his no-holds-barred criticism of religion, which he describes as a delusion, and championing humanist and atheist views. The forum on the site boasts 68,083 members.

Ferguson's write-up of the attack, including screenshots, can be found here. ®

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