Will Bill O’Reilly’s Webmaster Be Able to Spin This?

Bill O’Reilly likes to say he’s “looking out for you,” but who’s looking out for O’Reilly?

Not his Webmaster, apparently.

Disgruntled hackers took control of BillOreilly.com on Friday and posted screenshots of the administrative interface on Wikileaks.org as proof of their electronic invasion. Wikileaks was told the breach was in retaliation for O’Reilly’s sharp criticism of sites that published some of Sarah Palin’s inbox after her email account was hacked earlier this week.

Here’s the text from the Wikileaks entry:

The file provides proof that the Fox News demagogue, Bill O’Reilly, has been hacked.

Wikileaks has been informed the hack was a response to the pundit’s recent scurrilous attacks over the Sarah Palin’s email story–including those on Wikileaks and other members of the press. Hacktivists, thumbing their noses at the pundit, took control of O’Reilly’s main site, BillOReilly.com. According to our source, the security protecting O’Reilly’s site and subscribers was “non-existent”.

And here’s a bit more from someone who claims to be involved in the hacking:

it was easy really we searched his website and found this link here [url removed] to all those passwords and they were unencrypted and it didnt require a login, Bill needs to really fire his webmaster lol

Yeah, I’m sure Bill is LOL. That person pins the hacking on Ebaumsworld users, but a commenter suggests users of the 4chan boards have been known to use Ebaumsworld as a cover.

The stolen information includes the names, e-mail addresses, and passwords of BillOreilly.com premium members, as well as their geographical locations. While only a handful of members had their information published at Wikileaks, more than 200 individuals currently have their member data being passed around the Web via popular file hosts and peer-to-peer file sharing.

The Register spoke to Eric Marston, the CTO of the company responsible for O’Reilly’s site.

According to Marston, the hackers were able to access the unsecured list by trying a large number of variations of the website’s administrative URL. He said all affected members have received an email and a phone call informing them of the breach and urging them to change their password anywhere they may have used it. No credit card information was stolen, and the site has since been completely locked down, Marston said.

The Register also points out that even though no credit card data was pilfered, the victims are vulnerable to identity theft and further hacks since people often use the same password on multiple systems.

Threat Level and Gateway Pundit have more.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on September 20, 2008 at 1:04 am

Filed Under Liberal Absurdity