(Final Update) The hackers strike again but MindaNews online again
July 21, 2007 by mindanaw
(Unofficial) As of 7:25 p.m. Sunday, the MindaNews website is online again after having crashed for 31.5 hours — courtesy of random hackers. Technical experts are attending to installing more safeguards.
of As of 1:28p.m. Sunday, more than 24 hours after crash point, the hacking problem has stayed on. A Davao-based technical consultant said KL-based counterparts might be able to restore it “in a few hours.”
As of 8:55 a.m. Sunday, July 22 it is still status quo for the MindaNews website after it was hacked near noon time Saturday. Apparently, the current screen shows an error lag to connection. We are giving continuous attention to address this technical glitch.
As of 00:33 a.m. Sunday, the front page of MindaNews’ website turned white with what appears to be strains of source codes. The change shows work is underway to restore the website 14 hours after it was hacked.
As of 11:46 p.m. Saturday night, efforts to restore the MindaNews website after it was hacked this morning are still fruitless. Browsers still could not connect to the site.
As of 8:30 p.m. the technical group removed the the hackers’ screen from the MindaNews’ website front page. It should indicate work is in progress to correct this vandalism of MindaNews.com.
As of 10:35 a.m. today the MindaNews website has been hacked, again, by still unknown culprits.
This has been approximately the sixth time www.mindanews.com was attacked by cyber criminals for still unknown reasons since May 2006.
We are tracking the perpetrators but the priority is to restore our online publication on Mindanao stories and issues the soonest possible time.
The hackers’ screen indicated the website was taken over by www.soqor.com. They published the words “This website is owned by The Palentinian. Your protection is too weak. Next time be careful.”
We apologize to our avid readers and the public in general for this inconvenience.
I hope we will be ready to post an official explanation soonest.
Thank you.
its not a target nor specific hack on mindanews. its more of a random hack. this kind of hackers scan the internet looking for specific vulnerable of joomla. from what i see… mindanews.com joomla file -> configuration.php was carelessly has a 777 file permission nor in laymans term… configuration.php writeable even by the public. joomla current version 1.0.12 is stable and this hack was due to carelessly setting configuration.php writable. i believe the database is intack.
nangyari sa akin din to….when im so lazy after configuring joomla powered sites i forgot a 777 permision mode of configuration.php to change it to 644 mode.
just restore the old configuration.php … hope you still remember the db name, db user, db password … this is the fast fix.
Thanks Jun,
I’ll forward this comment from yours. You could surmise from my post I don’t really know the technical side of the hack, hehe. But yes I heard one of our KL-based consultants on Joomla telling us about that.
Big tango!
thx for the info bro…
hackers can gain access through site by using joomla plugins installed in your site. so just be sure that you uninstall plugins that are unsecure or update those plugins you have if you can find any exploit in it. and ftp are somewhat dangerous so make your ftp access more secure. like blocking access to ftp after how many times of incorrect password entered, then return access after how many minutes or an hour.
I believe it was the plugins that causes the site to be hacked I would suggest to double check the compatibility issues and to see whether the plugins installed on joomla powered site is updated and bugs are already fix before applying it to your site. Have you heard about RFI hacking tricks? (Remote File Inclusion) hacking method???? Well, you should know about it guys… rampant nowadays.
Spyd3r - no way it was the plugins. And RFI hacking is already outdated.