Splinter Cell hack smells more like publicity stunt
Pwn or PR?
Ubisoft said that the website of its popular video game Splinter Cell had been hacked on Thursday. However circumstantial evidence suggests the hack is more likely to be a publicity stunt than a genuine cyber assault.
Visitors to the Splinter Cell website are been greeted by a message in Russian. This is followed a bit.ly link buried in the message, which leads on to a page displaying the ASCII art of a shield with a double-headed eagle, also on the Splinter Cell site.
The arty effort looks more like an Easter Egg than the sort of things real cybercrooks typically spray on compromised sites, which usually include rants, abuse, political messages, greetings to other hackers and the like.
Ubisoft "confirmed" the Splinter Cell website had been "pwned" in a Twitter posting hours ago but is yet to take down the ostensible defaced site or do anything about the supposed hack. Security experts are doubtful that the attack is genuine, speculating that it's probably a hoax.
"If it is a publicity stunt it's probably not the wisest that there has ever been - a hoax like this can panic users into believing there is a genuine security problem, and panic can lead internet users to make bad decisions," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus firm Sophos, in a blog post here.
Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro also expressed scepticism about whether a genuine attack had actually taken place in a Twitter update here. ®
COMMENTS
Doh!
Pity the poor website sysadmin, who is being publicly humiliated for operating weak security measures while doing nothing of the sort.
Could it also induce a...
..."That's not a hack, THIS is a hack!" type of response?
Or...
Or, if there were a real hack by a Russian group intent on taking over the world, we'd all think it was another hoax and ignore it. Even James Bond might be duped. This is the perfect opportunity for Dr Evil to strike.
Silly Web Admin
SIlly web admin, everyone knows you need security! I can't talk for other programming languages, but in PHP I always do the following to prevent such attacks.
<?php
if(detect_hack() == true){ stop hack_attack() ; }
and for really important sites I include
if($shenanigans){$shenanigans = false;}
Google Translate
Page title: Raven
Notifications
Subject: System Maintenance
Occasionally the security system will be switched off for planned work and data protection. During such work may be a breach in security from external threats. Thus, all off would be a random character in accordance with a random pattern of Delta-3-6-Oscar
