Hackers deface World Cup Web site

S'kiddiots attack soccer - is nothing sacred?

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Security, 22nd August 2001 11:35 GMT

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S'kiddies have defaced the official home page of Japan's World Cup organising committee with an obscene message.

Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that Jawoc.or.jp was defaced with an obscene message that said "*uck Japan hack by Chinese GX boy", which has led the site being taken temporarily offline while the damage is fixed.

The defacement hasn't being recorded on defacement sites, such as Alldas.de, yet.

In a story filed late last night, AFP reported that the defacement was discovered last weekend, when staff found it difficult to access the site. The site will be placed online again after its security is hardened.

This isn't the first problem to affect World Cup Web sites.

Back in February, technical glitches delayed the launch of World Cup ticket sales from FifaWorldCup.com, the official Web site for the tournament, in order to allow techies to fix unspecified technical problems.

Indications were this was down to a delay in getting ecommerce software or digital certificate technology, suitable for Japanese or Korean consumers in place in time. Tickets could be bought from the International portion of the Web site throughout, which pointed towards a little local difficulty. ®