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September 5, 2011

Turkish hacker group hijacks high-profile websites

However, the websites remain unaffected with this attack; the hacker group says they did this for fun

By CBR Staff Writer

A Turkish hacker group diverted visitors to the websites of Vodafone, the Daily Telegraph, National Geographic and four other high-profile websites to the hacker group’s own website on Sunday.

The hackers were able to attack on computers that hold web address information, by deliberately mistranslating the real URL names the IP address of the hackers’ site.

The four other high-profile websites include UPS, Betfair, Acer and technology news site the Register.

However, it was reported the seven websites that were attacked by the group were not affected in terms of losing or compromising data to the group.

A group called Turk Guvenligi carried out the attack by targeting domain name system (DNS), which is used to route users to websites.

The records relating to seven websites in DNS databases run by NetNames and Ascio were changed by the group in this attacke. Both are the subsidiaries of domain name management firm Group NBT.

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The DNS server gets the first request when a user types an address, and then it translates the address into a computer-readable one known as a "dotted quad", according to the Guardian.

The hackers here hacked the database for the DNS at the "domain name registrar" company to change the details recorded for the affected sites, following which the DNS servers around the world will start to copy and pass them on.

This means that users can be directed to any web page by the hackers.

The hacking group told the Guardian via Twitter that the purpose was: "Millions of dollars, large systems, small weaknesses and what I could do. Just for fun."

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