June 2, 2008

Mission to Mars website hacked

The recent Mars Lander programme has been hailed a success, as no doubt it was the landing craft is on the red planet and searching for signs of life, which is what the mission is all about. This is undoubtedly a great success for the people behind the Phoenix Mars Lander Mission.

But while everyone was patting themselves on the backs and telling the world the what a great job they had all done, the people who were in charge of looking after the website were not keeping their eyes on the ball.

A hacker had sneaked into the website and changed the lead news story, and also at the same time left a signature too, this link when clicked on took visitors off to another website which was hosted abroad.

The University of Arizona who hosts the website had to take it down for a while until the problem had been rectified.

Source [Washington Post]