Nigerian government website falls at hands of Brazilian defacement

Filed Under: Vulnerability

Here's what the official website of the government of Nigeria normally looks like:

Nigerian government website

And here's what it looks like today, with a title of "Fatal Error ownz you !!!!!":

Defaced Nigerian government website

Fatal Error !
by Elemento_pcx & s4r4d0 ...
"Seja você mesmo mas não seja sempre o mesmo" ... G. o Pensador ...

The message in Portuguese translates as

"Be yourself but not always the same" ... G. The Thinker ...

Two email addresses are provided by the hackers if anyone needs any help (it's uncertain whether you would contact them for help regarding the website defacement, or to have the profundity of the quote explained to you).

Of course, it's perfectly possible that the email addresses listed belong to people who have no knowledge of the hack - but with the quote written in Portugeuse, it certainly wouldn't be a surprise to see a Brazilian connection.

If you run a website make sure you are doing everything to keep it as secure as possible - for both your organisation's sake, and that of your users. If you haven't already done so, read this informative paper by SophosLabs, "Securing websites", which covers some of the issues.

, , , , ,

4 Responses to Nigerian government website falls at hands of Brazilian defacement

  1. John Baxter says:

    I like the quote, anyhow.

  2. Kenseiden says:

    I felt a bit offended, since they are saying that the hacker is brazilian. Theres other countries that spekas portuguese, like portugal itself (and some other african countries).

    To be honest, though, it LOOKS like brazilian portuguese, since the hackers are quoting Gabriel o Pensador (A brazilian rapper) and their 'accent' looks totally brazilian to me.

  3. Mubashar says:

    websites are being hacked every other day. there suppose to be a solution to end this. Most targets are governments or multi-national companies.

  4. Jeremy Visser says:

    Funny, I thought the "before" image was the defaced version before I scrolled down enough. Such shocking design I'm sure it won't be sorely missed while it's down.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title="" rel=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <pre> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

About the author

Graham Cluley has worked in the computer security industry for more than 20 years, developing anti-virus software and doing quite a lot of talking about internet threats. He's won awards for his blogging, but is proudest of the text adventure games he wrote when he was still wearing short trousers. You can learn more about those (the games, not the trousers) at grahamcluley.com. Send Graham an email, subscribe to his updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and App.net, and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.