Hacker redirects Obama's Web site to Clinton's
Updated 10 a.m. PDT Tuesday with comment from "Mox."
Someone exploited a weakness in Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's Web site and redirected visitors to rival Hillary Clinton's site over the weekend, according to a posting on the blog of security firm NetCraft.
Basically, visitors to the community blogs section of Obama's site on Saturday night were sent to Clinton's site. Someone using the alias "Mox" claimed credit for the hack on Obama's site late on Sunday.
The writer downplayed the act, saying: "All I did was exploit some poorly written HTML code." Basically, the hack was possible because of a cross-site scripting vulnerability, which is a common hole in Web sites.
A YouTube user named "Zennie62" posted a video clip showing him being redirected from Obama's site to Clinton's.
The redirect has been fixed, but "Mox" says similar vulnerabilities remain on the site.
An e-mail sent to CNET News.com late on Monday from "mox xss" said: "this exploit was not at all politically motivated, and it was simply an immature prank meant purely for fun. Senator Clinton had no hand whatsoever."
Purported hacker says other vulnerabilities exist on Obama's Web site.
(Credit: Netcraft)
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.
I'm left wondering if the same thing is possible on the other candidates' sites.
Disclosure: I'm Libertarian. I probably wouldn't trust any of the Republican or Democrat candidates anyway.
Now, his opponents in the presidential race apparently are dishonest enough to deface his site (either them or their supporters). That's much, much worse.
I think some ppl are reading way too far into this than they should.
Viva Independents! :-D