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Paul Clark’s website hacked

By Alan W Collins on Monday 6th April 2009 09:49 / 7 comments

John Ward has noticed today the perils of new technology – as, embarassingly, has my local MP Mr Paul Clark.

Mr Clark’s website – at http://www.labourisworking.com/ – has been hacked by ‘red virus’, leaving an explicit comment ‘from egypt’ that could quite easily have come from many of Mr Clark’s constituents.

Such are the perils of technology – and thus the need for strong passwords and encryption are once again highlighted.

I myself have always used passwords with combinations of letters (small and capitalised) and numbers. However, following this latest event, my more important passwords have changed to include other characters and have been lengthened (to over 21 characters).

I would advise anyone else on the web to follow suit. Just to be safe.

Update @ 13:12

It seems as if everything is now back to normal over at ‘labourisworking.com’, although I’d just like to take up Tom’s offer and suggest that, based on the events earlier, it quite obviously isn’t working as well as they’d like…

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7 Comments

Tom says:

Monday 6th April 2009 at 15:55

Much appreciated Alan!

I have to say, I know Parliament is a bit quiet these next two weeks with recess, but pretty surprised how many journalists have phoned today to ask about this.

Worryingly, (perhaps I shouldn’t say this) all our passwords were/are combinations of letters, symbols, and numbers, and they were all over 20 characters. So I’m very confused as to how it happened. Think it was more to do with the hosts than anything we did, as they told us a few sites has been ‘hit’.

Nevermind eh. Onwards and upwards.
John Ward says:

Monday 6th April 2009 at 21:49

Tom

I suspect the journalists were starved of material as a consequence of the recess. They still have all those column-inches to fill?

It is disappointing when you have clearly taken all reasonable precautions and applied strong passwords, and yet these ELB types (Ego Larger than Brain) have nothing better to do with their lives than harm others’ efforts.

Personally, I’d make it a million pound fine offence, along with all virus/worm/trojan/adware/etc writing and deliberate release. As matters stand, there seems to be no disincentive to these sniggering "Hah! Beat you!" types who I think of as overgrown schoolboys with no real purpose in life.

I do hope it gets fixed soon.
John Ward says:

Monday 6th April 2009 at 21:56

Actually, it has been: I’ve just visited.
Alan W Collins says:

Monday 6th April 2009 at 22:49

Tom – some people can be quite unrelenting but if a few sites have had problems then I would assume that it was a problem with the host.

Your nameservers are, I see, set to bluehost.com so I assume you are hosted with them?

I personally use a local host – Medway Hosting – which is ?70 for the year (which reminds me – I have to renew it all soon!) but is always reliable.

I do agree with John about the journos, though. They do have column inches to fill with no news coming from Parliament.

I notice Yourmedway wasted no time in publishing it on their website.
John Ward says:

Wednesday 8th April 2009 at 16:17

Yes, Alan, I spotted it at YourMedway too, and thought: "that was quick!"

I too am with Medway Hosting, by the way, and my clunky old Councillor website is kept there as well as at a mirror site (eggs in two baskets!
Alan W Collins says:

Wednesday 8th April 2009 at 16:23

John – I’ve never seen them act so quickly!

They even beat the Medway Messenger, who published it online on Tuesday morning.

Only time will tell if they and/or the News will run it in tomorrow’s papers.
jone says:

Monday 27th April 2009 at 14:46

he is Professional

fuck egypt

http://www.google.com/search?hl=ar&q=hacked+by+red+virus&btnG=%D8%A8%D8%AD%D8%AB+Google%E2%80%8F&lr=&aq=f&oq=

he hacked alot of site and he talk about egypt

i heat red virus
i heat egypt