April 23, 2008
A hacker who called himself "Saudi Arabia Hacker" gained control of the Al-Wafd newspaper website this week. The attacker defaced the website of the Egyptian opposition party, replacing more than half of the main page with an image of a masked man carrying a machine gun and demanding the removal of the cross from the logo of the party.
The site management was able to regain control over the website after two hours of the attack, which took place on Thursday, 17 April. The attacker, who did not prove whether or not he was a Saudi, controlled the site again for some time before the incident was finally resolved.
The party's webmaster announced that investigations are underway by the Internet Investigation department of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior. The same department was involved in the investigation of a similar recent breakthrough of Al-Ahali party newspaper website. A student was found to be responsible for defacing the Al-Ahali website as a part of his hacking experimentation.
This kind of event raises serious concerns about the incident management procedures needed to protect websites. The Center for Internet Security and the Open Web Application Security Project provide a wealth of information on that topic, while the incidents page on our website can provide help for Qatari sites that have been hacked.