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PopularWireless WordPress Blog HACKED by Muslim Extremists – Host Network Solutions

February 7th, 2009 |

Author: Doug

Our sister blog at popularwireless.com has been hacked, apparently by Muslim extremists with messages of hate directed at the USA and Israel. The blog was replaced by terrorist messages in English and a middle eastern language.

This is the second time in six months a Network Solutions account I own has been hacked. Despite changing passwords the last time on all of my accounts someone keeps finding a way in. Network Solutions said they might be able to escalate the problem in one or two days. Like the last time, all they would do is suggest I change passwords. Network Solutions was completely disinterested then as they are now. I did also mention I was a Gold VIP customer but the off-shore call taker was not impressed. So like the last time, I am on my own. They have no interest in determining where the hack came from.

Now I wanted to do the right thing so I called the Baltimore FBI office. The agent there connected me to the FBI’s terrorism task force. They don’t investigate these hijackings unless asked to by the local Sheriff but did request that I send a synopsis of the page content to them by email. I’m still mystified why they just couldn’t go look at the site.

Next I called the business number for the Calvert County Sheriff and explained the FBI doesn’t investigate these things until my local law enforcement has taken a report. Hmmm, local to me or the Network Solutions server? I would think such incidents are not local to me in scope. There’s no bad guys lurking in our forests and I have no clue whether or not the Sheriff has a cyber-crimes unit.

The sheriff’s call taker wouldn’t have a deputy call me to take a report. “We don’t have deputies to use the telephone.” I explained it was late and we wanted to go to bed. So unless I would have a deputy come out now there isn’t anything that is going to happen. I just thought that if there was anything important in this hijacked page law enforcement might want to look at it now. They didn’t need me to get on a computer and enter the blog URL! Yawn.

It doesn’t appear that anyone is even going to look at except maybe the FBI, but even with them I have to write a synopsis and email it. They’ll sit on the information though until the Sheriff gives them a buzz. Why am I starting to feel like this is an all-too common problem and that nobody really cares what the page says? Cyber terrorism is alive and well wherever the report might be taken. I’ll call the Sheriff tomorrow and see what they say. Maybe in a few days I’ll hear back from Network Solutions. Gold VIP! Woo hoo!

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6527 Responses2009-02-08+02%3A27%3A59Doug to “PopularWireless WordPress Blog HACKED by Muslim Extremists – Host Network Solutions”

Doug says:

February 8, 2009 at 6:59 am

Fascinating! There is fellow on Twitter that is an employee of the web service provider so I Twittered him last night about this. He sent back that the web service provider would call me this morning. Well apparently they did do something. My guess it is embarrassing to be hacked regardless of what you tell your customers so the blog directory permission was changed to ACCESS DENIED. I received no notice, no word, no telephone messages, no email, no Twitter. Now, law enforcement can't see the page as displayed on the web. I did download the html and a printed version.

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Doug says:

February 8, 2009 at 7:01 am

SInce this has happened twice to two different WordPress blogs I am sort of concerned. The bottom line is that I do not know how the fascist hate-mongers hacked the site. If the web provider knows they are not sharing. All I have seen from them so far is anonymous support.

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Doug says:

February 8, 2009 at 9:27 am

At around 1230 PM I did finally receive a call from an engineer at the service provider. He had no idea who deleted the index file and possibly other files last night. He said he restored the database. Now I have to hunt down my original files that were deleted to see if I can get the blog back up and running. I'm at a slight handicap because I do not know what the people at Network Solutions deleted and they kept no records apparently. All of the evidence is gone. Not much point anymore in asking law enforcement to look at it is there.

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Doug says:

February 13, 2009 at 9:02 am

On Tuesday following this event Network Solutions did follow up with me. A Tech Support supervisor from their Northern Virginia office telephoned me. He listened to what I had to say very politely and respectfully. I was impressed. There may be changes afoot at headquarters. His technical people looked very carefully at the situation and will do what they can to share the attack information with authorities. Now if these folks ran things I think customers would be very impressed.

This event follows a period time where I have seen someone visiting my blogs attempting to use SQL injection hacks in the WordPress search windows. I have no idea if the culprit used such a hack or not. No one seems to know at this point. What was apparent is that the hacker was able to upload or modify the index.php file in a THEME directory. The ISP said the database appeared damaged as well.

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John Simpson says:

February 19, 2009 at 9:24 pm

It seems as though you are unable to tell the difference between your Account with a major registrar being hacked, and your WordPress blog, which is insecure by nature, being hacked. Your WordPress blog is a totally separate thing from your Network Solutions account, or your GoDaddy account, or wherever your account is.

Contact WordPress with security concerns about WordPress, not Network Solutions, not GoDaddy, not the Easter Bunny, but WordPress.

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Doug says:

February 19, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Gosh, obviously I'm not as smart as you. Well I did discuss it at lenght with the service provider. They looked very carefully at their security and at the WordPress 2.71 installation. They couldn't come up with anything. Perhaps you can illuminate us instead of dropping in like a troll and sharing nothing but bad vibes. The average WordPress user relies on the coding expertise of WordPress. No we don't know the inner workings and hidden mechanisms. We all have confidence that WordPress will find and patch any problems found. Perhaps someone as smart as you would like to offer WordPress a suggestion? You're right. I'm obviously not as smart as you. You have a monopoly on brains.

So since you know more than WordPress programmers and more than the web service provider, perhaps you can illumibate the rest of us as to the vulnerability so we can all prtect ourselves.

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