Telegraph readers can rest easy in their armchairs, while Coke drinkers can sup their sweet gloop in peace after being told a recent mass hack attack on their websites did not result in any customer data being compromised.
The online newspaper and Coca-Cola sites were just two of a number of high-profile websites, including National Geographic, UPS and the Register, targeted on Sunday night by a DNS (domain name server) attack, which declared September 4th “World Hackers Day”.
According to reports, it was masterminded by a Turkish hacking group, which rerouted visitors to a third-party site, although the move appears to be more mischievous than malicious.
A Telegraph spokesman confirmed that its website was affected by the attack, but that its servers and customer data were not compromised.
“The problem was fixed last night by NetNames, a domain-name management service, who are conducting a full investigation into how the third party diverted traffic away from a number of high profile websites, including the Telegraph,” the spokesman said. The Register similarly reported that there was “no attempt to penetrate our systems”.
The attack is in sharp contrast to the experience of News International last month, when the personal details of hundreds of thousands of Sun readers, including home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, were posted on popular filesharing websites.
In an email sent to affected customers, former Alchemetrics chief Chris Duncan, who is now director of customer data for News International, was forced to admit that the data was stolen during an attack on the Sun website in July.
Related stories:
Hacker exposes Sun reader data
Hackers’ threat to expose NI emails
Hackers post ‘Murdoch dead’ hoax
