NOAA gov Website Hacked by INternational Pill Pushers
Released on = March 5, 2007, 4:33 am
Press Release Author = Schrock Innovations, Inc. / Thor Schrock
Industry = Computers
Press Release Summary = In an apparent breech of cyber-security, more than 70 pages pushing the prescription drug Soma were uploaded to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) government website by an unauthorized user over the weekend.
Press Release Body = In an apparent breech of cyber-security, more than 70 pages pushing the prescription drug Soma were uploaded to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) government website by an unauthorized user over the weekend. The unauthorized pages are still visible this morning, and can be viewed at http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/hotitems/soma/.
Thor Schrock, local computer guru and owner of Schrock Innovations, explained that the pages are designed to influence search engine rankings and drive people to purchase the prescription drug illegally. He was unsure how the pages were uploaded to the NOAA.gov website.
"I think it is pretty safe to say that the NOAA is not pushing Soma on people," Schrock said. This is obviously a case where a rouge employee, a hacker, or someone with access to the NOAA's web servers is attempting to exploit lax security for a personal gain."
Schrock discovered the pages after an anonymous individual spammed the Schrock Innovations customer support forum with links to the pages. After looking into the post more closely, Schrock noticed that the links pointed to a .gov website.
Schrock notified the FBI of the intrusion via email Sunday night, and posted complete details about the pages on the NOAA website on his blog at http://www.thorschrock.com.
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