Symantec Snoop Dogg rap contest site rickrolled

#hackiswacked

By John Leyden, 3rd September 2010

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Symantec's attempts to link up with Snoop Dogg to launch a cybercrime rap contest have descended into farce after it emerged that vulnerabilities with a dedicated site can be easily rickrolled.

The HackIsWack.com site was reportedly taken down for maintenance on Tuesday but still harbours cross site scripting security problems, as illustrated here.

Would-be rappers are invited to post a rap on the topic of cybercrime for a chance to win ticket to a Snoop gig in LA and a laptop running Norton Internet Security 2011. The contest is restricted to US residents and has attracted just seven entries thus far.

The security problems with the site prompted one wag to ask: "Did they hire Snoop Dog as just a spokesman or did he also write the code?" on Twitter, a negative remark embarrassingly replayed on the site because it used the dedicated #hackiswack tag.

Symantec's aims in raising awareness on cybercrime are laudable and it also deserves credit for applying a bit of imagination in a bid to gets its message out to the widest possible audience. However, its execution has been woeful and invited ridicule, even before the musical quality of the entrants is considered. ®

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