LG Electronics' Australian Web site has become the latest victim of an apparently political hacking group known as the Ghost Boys. LG's site lge.com.au is carrying an anti-US slogan. The site was still defaced at 08:00hrs Australian EST and carries the words "DEFACED BY The Ghost Boys UssA sux! Viva La Resistance! greetz to DkD[||".
The group also recently appears to have claimed responsibility for a range of defacements of US military and government sites in June according to information security site Zone-H.org, replacing home pages with a picture of an injured child with the words "Am I free yet?".
Mirrors of other Ghost Boy Zone-H defacements targeted at US Military Web sites carry a variety of anti US and Israeli messages, mostly in reference to US support for Israel.
A government official at the US Embassy told Computerworld that politically motivated hacking against US government sites and interests had proliferated since the first outbreak around the time of the Bosnian conflict.
"It's an ongoing battle, we do everything we can. There's a lot of this stuff around. We'll pass it on to the security guys. These kind of things happen from time to time," the source said, adding that US Embassy and Consular Web sites are frequently attacked.
Sources at LG Australia said that they had become aware of the attack this morning and that site hosting, security and management was outsourced through Worldcom MCI. Asked when they expected a fix to the defacement, the LG source said he was on his way in to find out what was going on, "Soon…I hope".
Computerworld's calls to MCI's 24 hour support centre were still on hold at time of publishing, with a variety of flute and pipe renditions of ABBA, Clannad and assorted other calmative artists being played until calls timed out and terminated.
The plug on the LG Australia site appears to have been pulled at around 09:00hrs Sydney time.