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Forth Road Bridge hack redirects to smut bazaar

Hackers turned the Forth Road Bridge website into a filth jamboree after breaking into its systems to plant script designed to redirect surfers to a Turkish site hosting malware. According to Scottish security outfit Roundtrip Solutions the website of the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (www.feta.gov.uk), which runs the famous …

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Jason Togneri
Coat

feta.gov.uk

And with a name like FETA, I was rather expecting it to point to a site in Greece...

TrishaD

Here We Go Again...

Before the inevitable stream of joky comments about porn and the weaknesses of various operating systems start to flow in......

It really is about time that web-hosting organisations got their acts together and took the security of their clients seriously. There's no excuse for selling a service and then failing to be diligent in keeping on top of vulnerabilities. This was no new exploit and proper vunerability management should have picked it up. A lot of large organisations use these people and the get out of jail free card always seems to be 'Oh well, there's no company information held there so its ok'. Well actually, it isnt. These people are creaming large amounts of money of the organisations they serve and they really need to sort themselves out.....

Neil Barnes
Coat

I dunno...

you just get finished painting the website and you have to start again...

Neil
Coat

Cheesy

The feta webside was hacked to show porn? How cheesy.

I'll get it myself, don't get up.

MattW

Is it just me?

I can't see anything wrong with that screenshot?...

Slaine
Thumb Up

FETA Cheese

Nice, the Forth Estuary has it's own transport website.

Well, there is a vacancy for summertime pleasure cruises in the future maybe but since the Scottish Executive ruled that the tolls be scrapped I find the idea of a "recruitment" link a bit of a laugh.

Keith T
Happy

Pop-ups

"hacked in order to serve up pop-up ads for porn sites."

I know it sounds smug but as an Adblock user--

What's a pop-up?

Anonymous John
Unhappy

Re: I dunno...

Damn! Beat me to it.

An ominous cow herd
Coat

Feta.co.uk

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that cheesy?

The hat with the ponpon and matching shoes, please...

James Pickett
Alert

@slaine

My thoughts exactly. How many other bridges have their own websites, I wonder?

David Wiernicki

Wait a minute here...

...I've seen this happen before - domains that expire and get snapped up, hacked sites, and they lead to porn.

But does this actually work? Who the hell goes to the web site for Forth Road Bridge, sees porn instead, and goes, "Hey, if there's no bridge, I might as well have a jolly good w*nk!"?

I just don't get it.

Keith Langmead
Stop

Re: Here We Go Again...

"It really is about time that web-hosting organisations got their acts together and took the security of their clients seriously."

While I certainly agree that many organisations need to look a lot more seriously at how they control the security of their equipment and websites, I think it's somewhat heavy handed to just assume that the fault here was with the sites web hosting company.

From the limited information given about what happened here it sounds very similar to a large number of hacks which were done at the end of last year covering thousands of different web sites, pointing visitors towards malicious .js pages to install malware on their machines. In that case it was actually a SQL injection attack that caused the problem, and I wouldn't be suprised if the same was true here.

Now since in many cases (I'd even hazard to say most) the company that hosts the webserver is not the same as the one who designs and develops the website, perhaps you should be directing your annoyance at the developers who are not preventing the SQL injection, rather than the poor hosting guys who have no control over the website code running on their servers.

Phil Rigby
Paris Hilton

@MattW

There's plenty wrong with that screenshot - IE6, Google Toolbar, and the Yahoo toolbar :-)

Paris HIlton icon because - like a bridge, most people have ridden on her at some point.

Anonymous Coward
Happy

@James Pickett

I should imagine that there are quite a few websites devoted to Galloping Gertie - the (old) Tacoma Narrows Bridge - and maybe to its modern-day version, the footbridge across the Thames to Tate Modern.

Andrew
Paris Hilton

@Phil Rigby

Says Paris Hilton herself. Thats not IE6 its Firefox!

Steve
Go

@James Picket

The Millau Viaduct has its own website: http://www.leviaducdemillau.com/index.html

I have to say it is also just a tad more exciting to cross than the Forth Bridge, although the latter does score by having Edinburgh at one end.

Jeremy Wickins
Unhappy

The Humber Bridge ...

... has its own site, too <http://www.humberbridge.co.uk/>. Not as exciting as the Millau viaduct, and has Hull at one end - there is no justice.

J-Wick
Dead Vulture

And on this side of the pond...

The Golden Gate Bridge, of course:

http://goldengatebridge.org/

Though the 'GGB Suicide Barrier Study' link on the front page is a little disturbing..

Dead vulture - did 'e jump, or was 'e pushed?

Herby

Bridges, bridges, we got web sites.

Look lots of bridges have web sites, for instance:

http://www.goldengatebridge.org/

Yes, I've walked over it. Quite nice on a Sunday Afternoon in summer with ones wife. The problem is that the people who run it seem to want nobody to use it, and keep doing other stupid things (Ferries, Raising tools, etc.). For an (almost) 70 year old it has held up quite well.

p.s. I had an uncle that provided some radios during construction.

RKP
Thumb Up

Another bridge website

Sydney, Australia's got one too: http://www.sydneyharbourbridge.com.au/

I bet if you wasted enough time you'd find lots of bridges have websites.

Steve
Thumb Up

OK, so I had time to waste...

Oresund Bridge

http://osb.oeresundsbron.dk/frontpage/?lang=1

Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge

http://www.carrickarede.com/

London Wobbly Bridge

http://www.arup.com/MillenniumBridge/

Le Pont du Gard

http://www.pontdugard.fr/index.php?langue=GB

I'm sure there's more...

Anonymous Coward
Coat

Porn!!

Surely a bridge too far !!

Dr Wheetos
Unhappy

Oh dear...

In my opinion, anyone who uses iframe these days is asking for trouble. Bank of India and an Italian bank were hacked this way last year.

tony trolle

re:@slaine

http://www.riverkwaibridge.com/

Kevin Rodger

FETA can't...

run a road bridge and can't look after their website!!!

Mark Menzies
Coat

@ David Wiernicki

Someone had to say it......

It made me chuckle on a dull Friday morning.

and now I will get ma coat....

fluffels
Thumb Down

@Steve

"I have to say it is also just a tad more exciting to cross than the Forth Bridge, although the latter does score by having Edinburgh at one end."

However, the Forth Bridge then loses all said points for connecting us with "Inbred ned land". Also known as Fife.

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