[EM] wiki emergency: home page hacked (and maybe more)

[Rob Lanphier]

It's fixed now, and the IP is blocked.

Not sure what the sluggishness you saw was.  It was pretty zippy for me.

I wouldn't refer to this as a "hack" (you had me worried for a sec).  A
"hack" would be a case where someone circumvented the security measures
in place.  Since anyone can edit a wiki, they were doing something they
were permitted to do under the security policy.  "Vandalism" or "spam"
are more appropriate descriptions.

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up.  I think it's all better now.

Rob

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 14:05 -0400, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> Well, it has happened.
> 
> The electorama wiki home page has been replaced by a list of spam links.
> 
> Happened to me within about a week when I started the wiki for 
> BeyondPolitics.org. To avoid it, I went to a replacement wiki 
> (TikiWiki) that had user security: to write, users must log in and to 
> get an account, they must register and respond to a validation email. 
> Maybe there is an option with the wiki being used by electorama.
> 
> That first time, I checked the access logs and found the source, and 
> complained to the ISP. I'm not sure what happened, but they did ask 
> for a copy of the log....
> 
> I also found the registrar for many of the domains advertised in the 
> list. I looked up the registration information and found fraudulent 
> phone numbers. I then complained to the registrar and the domain 
> registrations were cancelled. That cost them something, I'd venture 
> (unless they used fraudulent credit cards, which is unlikely since 
> the domains had been registered for some time.)
> 
> I tried to restore the page from history, but the site is sluggish or 
> non-responsive. One of two things is happening: either the owner is 
> fixing it, or the spammer is busy replacing all pages. They use bots 
> to find open pages and replace them with spam.
> 
> I'm generally opposed to the death penalty, but when it comes to 
> genuine spammers....
> 
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