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Islamic Messages Defacing Danish Websites |
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Wednesday, 08 February 2006 |
Muslim protests over editorial cartoons originally published by a Danish newspaper have spilled onto the Internet and resulted in defacements of hundreds of Danish Web sites, a security company said Tuesday.
According to Helsinki-based F-Secure, nearly 600 Danish sites have been defaced with anti-Dane and pro-Muslim messages in the past week, the latest fallout in the uproar over cartoons that include one depicting Mohammed with a bomb for a turban.
The defacements included warnings of suicide bombings, Arabic-language messages sprawled across home pages, and threats such as “die plez.”
Politically motivated Web attacks are infrequent, though certainly not unknown. Among the most notable was a month-long defacement dustup in 2001 between Chinese and American hackers after a U.S. spy plane was forced down by Chinese fighters, and a 2003 virus exchange between Pakistan and India as border tensions escalated between those countries.
The Zone-h.org security site has cataloged between 500 and 600 Danish sites that have been attacked, hacked, or defaced. |