New Zealand web sites caught in defacement spree

Several New Zealand websites were defaced over the weekend by "Turkish hacker Iskorptix", as part of a large-scale attack. According to the Zone-H site that archives defacements, the operating system on the attacked host is Linux-based.

However, the exact details surrounding the attack are still unclear, but the sites appear to have been targetted at random. Some are of the New Zealand ones listed are co-located at Auckland provider Maxnet, with others hosted by ihug-owned US provider Quik.com, whose New Zealand franchise ihug bought last year.

ihug's message of the day says a security breach at Quik.com has led to a number of websites being defaced. Confirming the issue, spokeswoman Annabel Gould says Quik hasn't sold services using the third-party US server for a long time. A small number of the provider's existing Quik customers have had their home page defaced, Gould says. She adds that there are no details yet as to how security was breached, but notes that the attack doesn't affect other ihug customers.