Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/01/rwc_login_glitch/

Rugby World Cup reporters swap identities in login glitch

Rugger buggers' buggy buggerup

By John Leyden

Posted in Security, 1st September 2011 12:19 GMT

The Rugby World Cup has hit a security snag just over a week before the eagerly awaited tournament kicks off in New Zealand.

Media partners logging into the dedicated media centre system were confronted with the profiles of other journalists instead. Sysadmins are trying to get to the bottom of the problem, in the meantime they are advising journos to reload the web page if they hit the problem, as explained in a notice (issued on Thursday) below.

RWC MEDIA ALERT

RWC 2011 Media Centre – login issue

A few people have experienced issues when logging on to the RWC 2011 Media Centre.

Specifically, some people are seeing someone else's profile after they enter their temporary password and go to the 'My profile' page.

If you experience this issue, please can you try refreshing the web page until you see your details?

If this does not work, please email mchelp@rugbyworldcup.com. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

We are working to resolve this issue and apologise for the inconvenience caused.

RWC 2011 Media Centre

The issue illustrates the teething problems that arise when you set up a system from scratch. Practical problems arising from the glitch are hard to gauge but its probably not the best idea if Australian media, for example, get wind of Kiwi TV broadcast plans. ®

Bootnote

Thanks to broadcast contractor Pete for the heads-up on the problem.