FTSE gets hacked

The FTSE web site at FT-SE.co.uk has been hacked by a group calling themselves "kat krew."

The FTSE confirmed that the front page had been hacked in the early hours of this morning, at around four AM.

A spokeswoman for FTSE said: "The home page is more of a marketing tool, and we don't have the same security in place so it would have been quite easy, we are aware of that."

She said that FTSE was talking with its "external consultants" and was reviewing the security procedures. She also emphasised that the business critical information was on different servers which were not hacked.

The hack is mirrored here at Attrition.

The capacity of the hacking community to embarrass the corporate world should not be underestimated. This was not a particularly malicious attack and the hackers even left a note explaining that no damage had been done.

However, as Chris MacNab of security specialists MIS Corporate Defense Solutions pointed out, this is yet another example of a big multinational corporation not taking the issue of security seriously enough.

"A good 99 per cent of these defacements are just opportunistic hacks. They are done by 15 or 16 year-old kids, using their parents PC to scan the net for vulnerabilities," he said.

"Companies need to take the isse more seriously because security is all about accountability and control. There may not have been any critical data on the server, but a defacement can undermine a brand's credibility." ®

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