Turkish hackers hit DNS servers

Servers belonging to DNS provider NetNames were recently compromised by Turkish hackers, who redirected traffic from more than 186 Web sites, writes eSecurity Planet.

According to eWeek, the attackers changed the Internet routing information on major Web sites to redirect users to different pages over the weekend, affecting dozens of companies, including Microsoft, the United Parcel Service and computer producer Acer.

Visitors to the affected sites on 4 September were shown a black page with a message that read in part: “Hacking is not a crime...We TurkGuvengligi declare this day as World Hackers Day - Have fun.” Guvenligi is Turkish for 'security'. It's not yet known whether a lone attacker or a group performed the redirects.

ZDNet adds that a number of high profile Web sites have had access disrupted on Sunday evening by a DNS hack.

The Register, The Daily Telegraph, UPS, BetFair and Acer are among those where access has been redirected to an attacker's home page; at the time of writing, users of Sky and Be Internet are reporting the diversion.

The Register tweeted “A DNS hijack, we think [...]. We have shut down access / services as a precaution.”