Media

Downtown Journal's website brought down by HellFire hacker [PHOTO]

By Aaron Rupar Wed., May 16 2012 at 1:36 PM
Categories: Media
DT journal crop.jpg
Someone who calls him or herself HellFire made headlines today.
Folks checking the Downtown Journal's website for Minneapolis news today were in for a surprise.

The Journal's website was paralyzed throughout the day after it was hacked be someone calling him or herself HellFire.

Today's top story? "Hacked by HellFire." A photo of a flaming skull was splashed across the middle of the page, with a "!! HellFire Was Here! !!" message above.

Here's a screengrab of the Journal's site taken around 1 p.m. today:
DT journal.JPG
To get an idea of how the Journal's site usually looks, here's screengrab taken today of the Journal's sister website, the Southwest Journal:
SW Journal.JPG
It sounds like Journal staff knows next to nothing about HellFire's identity or motives, though the Southwest Journal's Dylan Thomas tweeted in jest that HellFire "is just the new intern. No big deal." A Google search didn't turn up any information either.

By 1:30 p.m., the site had been de-hacked and was back to normal, meaning HellFire's run as the Journal's top story lasted about four hours.

Tags:

Downtown Journal, hacked, HellFire
Email to Friend
Print Article

We Recommend

My Voice Nation Help
1 comments
  Livefyre
Sort: Newest | Oldest
Joe
Joe

$20 says they are using a widely distributed CMS as their backend and hadn't patched it.  Once vulnerabilities are discovered and patches have been released for them, the vulnerability is published in detail making it a simple matter for "hackers" to exploit unpatched systems.

VOICE Daily Deals

From the Vault

 

Slideshows»

Retail

More >>
©2013 City Pages, LLC, All rights reserved.
Browse Voice Nation
  • Voice Places Minneapolis / St. Paul

    Voice Places

    Find everything you're looking for in your city

  • Happy Hour App

    Happy Hour App

    Find the best happy hour deals in your city

  • Daily Deals

    Daily Deals

    Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%

  • Best Of

    Best Of...

    Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city