[DM-MUG] maybe I was not hacked?

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Geoffrey Stevens <studias at msn.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your responses.
> "More likely the site itself was hacked, rather than your Mac"
>
> "... the one who got hacked was not
> you but the website you had visited"
>
> could you explain more? Was I viewing a page of a site that was being
> hacked?
>

It's possible someone figured out how to take over all or part of the
server that a website you visited was hosted on. This happens
occasionally, especially on sites that are not well maintained.

These incidents fall into two categories - for commercial gain and for
acting cool and making a show of yourself.

If this were for commercial gain then they'd have kept it a secret
that the server was hacked and used it for sending spam or spreading
viruses and malware. Instead they defaced the website and wrote their
name on it. This indicates that it was someone trying to impress
others. The term for this type of person is a "script kiddie."

People who run websites and run servers can help avoid getting hacked
by making sure the software they run is kept up to date. For example,
if you run wordpress for your blog make sure to upgrade it when new
versions come out. Or if you're a server admin make sure you install
software updates. The best way to do this is to subscribe to the
announcement mailing list of the software packages you use. This way
you'll be notified by email when new updates are available.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter