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  • Hacker's mark left on Greenfield paper's Web site

    Hacker's mark left on Greenfield paper's Web site
    By George Barnes

    WORCESTER TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
    Jun 6, 2006

    GREENFIELD - Visitors to the Greenfield Recorder's site on the Internet over
    the weekend were surprised to discover that instead of a page of news
    headlines and links to information, what they got was `Hacked by Metlak.'

    A view of the Web site, recorder.com, was blocked Sunday by a picture of a
    Turkish flag with the face of what appears to be a soldier superimposed on
    it and the words `Hacked by Metlak,' and `Turkish hacker' in parentheses
    beneath it. In smaller lettering was a paragraph written in Turkish.
    Yesterday, the newspaper's Web site could not be accessed.

    Douglas Hillman, operations director for the Franklin County newspaper, said
    the problem was not in the newspaper's equipment, although he said he was
    still trying to determine exactly what happened.

    `We believe it is in our ISP (internet service provider),' he said.

    Mr. Hillman said he was able to view the paper's Web pages from his office,
    but people seeking to read the newspaper on the Internet were blocked. He
    said he was not initially aware of the Metlak issue.

    The newspaper's Internet service provider is eclecTechs, a Northampton-based
    company. A spokesman for the company could not be reached for comment
    yesterday, but a message to customers left on the company's answering
    machine said, `We have now excised many of our technical issues we had
    earlier in the day. However, there may be some lingering issues. If you do,
    please leave a message.'

    Mr. Hillman said he reached the company and was told its server was down and
    the company was trying to fix the problem.

    A search for Metlak on the Internet shows many instances of the name in
    connection with access problems on Web sites. It is also linked to a Turkish
    hacker known as Iskorpitx, who is credited on many sites with committing the
    largest Internet hacking in history.

    Jason Matthews of Check Point Software, an Internet security company, said
    one of the ways people improperly gain access to a Web site is by
    surreptitiously gaining access to many computers through a virus. After
    gaining access to as many as 1,000 computers, the person then uses those
    computers to attack and overwhelm an Internet server, making it vulnerable.

    He said firewalls are designed to prevent access to computers by viewing
    information coming into the computers and determining if it could pose a
    threat.

    Mr. Hillman said he was unsure how his paper's Web site was compromised, but
    by late yesterday afternoon, it was up and running and displaying the
    current day's news.

    He said that because the new server the pages are on was installed with an
    old back-up tape, initially the public saw out-of-date stories and
    information on recorder.com, but the newspaper was working yesterday
    afternoon to load the new information to replace it.

    Jason Feifer of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report.

    http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art icle?AID=/20060606/NEWS/606060461/1003/NEWSREWIND

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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