Why do people hack blogs?

JennyP

This is probably a daft question and everyone else knows the answer already but I don't!

My 3 blogs all got hacked on Friday. The person who hacked them just put a red and black, rather menacing looking front page on my blog, with skull and crossbones, a message saying you've been hacked and some swearwords. He didn't (I'm assuming he, sorry!) delete my work - it was there all ready to be reloaded when my hosting company sorted it out.

I can't see what he gained from doing it. Is it just like vandalism on walls in the real world? A way of leaving your mark and showing you've been somewhere?

RussJK

JennyP wrote: »

I can't see what he gained from doing it. Is it just like vandalism on walls in the real world? A way of leaving your mark and showing you've been somewhere?

Sounds a bit like the reason for writing a blog too

I guess a script kiddy somewhere downloaded a new toy, and just looked for an excuse to use it. Now he can tell his IRC friends that he's a dangerous hacker, and that he hacked your mainframe.

RobTang

There some automated tools that do this kind of thing and hack known security vulerabilities, like search engine crawlers which dont just index your content.

While its most likey as RussJK its just a script kiddy, but some real reasons could include hacking the underlying server or using your blog as a malware source

robt_2

You could say he has done you a favour - you need to find out how he got in and secure it.

podcake

he/she probably did it to see if they could/prove they could etc..

this sort of thing has no advantage gained to the person doing it (unless you could argue its some sort of 'artistic' output and rebelling against the system, like graffiti or joy riding). As stated before its probably some bored kid who thought it funny and did it to ' see what I can do' I shouldn't worry too much, and just be thankful they didn't delete your work.

free4440273

make sure u report to the 'webmaster ' -or admin - if there is one .

Browntoa

weak passwords, probably identical passwords used on multiple sites/forums

someones lax with their forums security and your passwords are out there ,then may or may not be picked up and abused by someone

cit_k

Was it hosted on your own hosting, or someone elses (ie did you install the blog software yourself, or is it maintained and provided by another party?)

JennyP

Thank you for all the replies!

RussJK wrote: »

Sounds a bit like the reason for writing a blog too

That made me laugh! I suppose it is! :beer:

robt wrote: »

You could say he has done you a favour - you need to find out how he got in and secure it.

Yes, I did learn a lot of stuff I didn't know when it happened. Not only that, all my weekend plans had just fallen through and it was a welcome distraction from feeling miserable about that, in a funny kind of way!

cit_k wrote: »

Was it hosted on your own hosting, or someone elses (ie did you install the blog software yourself, or is it maintained and provided by another party?)

It's hosted on my own site. I installed the software. Does that make a big difference?

Atom

RussJK has the most likely scenario - if your on shared hosting and some script kiddy hacks some other site on the server they usually can deface the lot - you get a lot of skids going around defacing and posting a screenshot to places such as zone-h to up there stats.

annasoper

Lol! Don't you just love Google?

http://www.getsafeonlineblog.org/why-do-people-hack-websites