Russia Today’s website defaced in ‘Nazi’ hack attack

The website of the Russia Today (RT) news agency was defaced by hackers for a period of time overnight.

Although there’s no indication that the hackers managed to steal sensitive information, they clearly gained control to the website’s content management system, changing headlines so references to “Russia” and “Russians were replaced with the words “Nazi” and “Nazis”.

The news agency is no stranger to criticism from those who dislike its anti-American/pro-Kremlin leanings, and it seems hard to believe that the hack was not provoked by the escalating crisis in Ukraine, after the Russia government approved the deployment of its troops.

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As is so often the case, real-life conflict can spill over to internet attacks.

In case anyone was unsure as to whether the defaced headlines on the Russia Today website were legitimate or not, the media outlet tweeted to its followers confirming it had suffered a hack.

RT website has been hacked, we are working to resolve the problem

— RT (@RT_com) March 2, 2014

The website has since been restored to normal. Let’s hope that any security holes have been plugged, and if poor password security was to blame for the security breach that lessons have been learnt.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.