Hackers Attack Epilepsy Site

Filed in archive Spam News on May 8, 2008

© steveb_ohio

Just in case you were wondering just how low hackers and spammers will stoop, here's your answer. The Epilepsy Foundation's website was attacked by hackers who flooded it with hundreds of links to flashing pictures. Such pictures trigger seizures and severe headaches in many epileptics, and in fact, many of the site's visitors became ill after following the links. The hackers were able to compromise the site by exploiting a hole in the publishing software it uses. This allowed them to overwhelm the support forums with posts that had malicious links that pretended to contain useful info. Instead, the links led to pulsating, kaleidoscopic images designed to trigger seizures.

"I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it's funny to put a cat in a bag and throw it over a clothesline - they don't realize how cruel it is," said Paul Ferguson, a security researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. "It was an opportunity waiting to happen for some mean-spirited kid."

No one has come forward to take responsibility for the attack. It's quite disgusting to think a hacker would deliberately try and make people ill!