The world renowned university’s official website was defaced and database information was leaked as a result of an attack made by a Syrian hacktivist codenamed Th3Pro.
According to The Tech Herald, school officials called this attack the “work of a sophisticated individual or group” but further evidence seems to point otherwise.
It seems as the site’s content management system was accessed by using a valid set of credentials, after which he was able to do anything he wanted with it. Protest messages, videos and images belonging to the hacker replaced the usual content found on the pages.
One of the texts that could be read by visitors during the time of the siege, reads “This site has been breached to spread our message even if illegally But why do we publish in this way First Do You will Bmhacptnato to kill your website and the American leaders kill people and claim lives?
“Do You will Bmhacptnato to sabotage your site and you are destroying peoples minds? Do You will Bmhacptnato to penetrate your site and you are supporting a policy of killing? Do you think that America implements what it calls democracy If you are you are also killers If you doubt my words, I believe in you fools.”
The rest of the message is finished with the signature “~ Syrian Electronic Army,” which was noticed a few times before on other compromised domains.
To further make a point, the cybercriminal also made public the contents of some tables containing usernames and passwords which were utilized to access Harvard’s CMS.
This should be a wake-up call to the university’s website administrators as in the past period Harvard related locations were targeted by other hackers. As I’ve mentioned before, those in charge of important domains should take better safety precautions to be able to better respond to attacks that try to deface them and stain their reputation.
