Popular technology blog Techcrunch has been hacked and is currently down with all but a message noting that the site has indeed been compromised.
The blog has experienced frequent downtime of late but as have other blogs who host on Rackspace including, Mashable and The Inquisitr – we fortunately aren’t (we’re with Slicehost, owned by Rackspace interestingly enough).
This case appears different however with other blogs remaining live and Techcrunch admitting they had been targeted with a message that reads:
Earlier tonight techcrunch.com was compromised by a security exploit.
We’re working to identify the exploit and will bring the site back online shortly.
Earlier, presumably when the initial hack took place, text with a link to a rapid share download site was posted:
Oddly enough, sister blog CrunchGear is running smoothly, which indicates that TechCrunch in particular rather than its network was targeted.
The irony here of course, as it would be for us, is TechCrunch is a reliable source for information on site downtime.
More info over at Inquisitr and and Technologizer.
Update:
TechCrunch is now back up, interestingly all comments gone. Stay tuned for more info as to what happened.
Update 2:
A statement now on the blog reads:
“As some people noticed, at approximately 10:30 pm PST on Monday evening the main site in the TechCrunch Network – techcrunch.com – was hacked and redirected. The site was back up briefly at 11:30 pm but shortly went down again. As of 2:00 am, the site is back up and appears to be stable.
At this point we’re still gathering information on how the site was compromised, and will update this post with additional information.”
wth? cant believe they can be hacked…
I can. They didn't upgrade their WordPress install. Security exploits are patched for a reason. Updates are recommended as a result for similar reasons.
their bad…
their bad…
A popular and that too tech related site like techcrunch compromised. Are hackers so powerful?
We're running the TC hack with updates
http://www.inquisitr.com/59036/techcrunch-hacked/
Key is that at the time of writing, it appears to be ongoing.
You're right though, we're all exposed. That said, that shot isn't one I saw, so kudos there.
Either way, the story highlights the risk to us all.
Yup, looks like a wordpress issue. A visit to http://www.techcrunch.com/readme.html earlier tonight showed 2.8.4, which is known to be vulnerable to a number of issues. The page now shows 2.9.1. System security mgmt is a PiTA.
It's something to do with those alleged Apple Tablet images. The story by MG Siegler had a picture, supposedly of the tablet, which doesn't work now. If you go to the image's page, you can that hacking message … http://cache0.techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads…
It's HTML, not an image. I don't know if they hacked and then uploaded this, or they did (as the text seems to suggest) trick the writer in to uploading what isn't actually an image.
mental!
http://www.dynamic50.com
Wow, thats some pretty cool stuff dude!
Jess
http://www.online-privacy.int.tc
Interesting, they should know better than to lag on their software updates.
that's why techcrunch was down 10 hours back too
They should be using something like OPNET ACE Live (with 12TB of disk capacity) to store a forensic archive of all network packet data. They could then isolate the end user responsible and set appropriate firewall rules to block access.
Could not think TechCrunch could be hacked!
Not good news! Obviously someone trying to flex some muscle.
not many sites have reported about the hack. are they scared they would be the next?
We definitely heard some news after the elections that the Iranian government had started a group called Cyber Army to help with Collecting names of protesters and Taking down opposition websites. Numerous opposition websites have been taken down since the elections, including the most recent mowjcamp.com which is Mousavi’s main communication to the opposition.