Posted on 05/07/2008 6:37:20 PM PDT by presidio9
Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims.
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But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.
The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they're exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons.
The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation's publishing software that allowed them to quickly make numerous posts and overwhelm the site's support forums.
Within the hackers' posts were small flashing pictures and links — masquerading as helpful — to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.
"They were out to create seizures," said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of Web and print publishing for the foundation.
He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.
Security experts said the attack highlights the dangers of Web sites giving visitors great freedom to post content to different parts of the site.
In another recent attack, hackers exploited a simple coding vulnerability in Sen. Barack Obama's Web site to redirect users visiting the community blogs section to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's official campaign site.
The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation's site didn't appear to care about profit. The harmful pages didn't appear to try to push down code that would allow the hacker to gain control of the victims' computers, for instance.
"I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it's funny to put a cat in a bag and throw it over a clothesline — they don't realize how cruel it is," said Paul Ferguson, a security researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. "It was an opportunity waiting to happen for some mean-spirited kid."
In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people. That attack appeared to have been designed to cripple the computers of people using illegal copies of the software, researchers said.
Oh my. You can’t make this stuff up.
I had one of those graphics that I found on FR. It said something like “You deserve a seizure for your posts. I thought it was funny, but as I watched it after posting it, I thought...”Hm. That COULD actually cause someone to have a seizure...”
I don’t post it anymore.
I hope they find the perps. I hope they punish them.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
I don’t see the humor at all. The hackers intention was to cause harm. There’s nothing funny about that.
Some people would be greatly improved by stomping.
lol!!
I MUST be a very , very , very bad man.....because this is AWESOME!!!ROTFLMAO!!!!I know,I know;Karma will catch up with me ( where it has not already!) but I agree with an earlier poster who found this hilarious.
I’m surprised people aren’t getting seizures from TV. The latest fad in TV editing is to show 20 scenes in 30 seconds. I change the channel.
I think people who find it funny just don’t realize the implications of a grand mal seizure, especially a long lasting severe one.
As I said, I thought the graphic was funny until I actually watched it for a few minutes. I asked the moderator to pull it.
In theory this is sort of funny, due to the irony. In real life, this is exactly as funny as walking up to an old lady you don't know and punching her in the face.
Not funny to a parent of a child with seizures.
My daughter had seizures as a baby, but that was over 10 years ago. On October 1, she had a grand mal seizure. Scarriest thing I ever saw. My other daughter found her sister unconcious and seizing. She started turning blue, she threw up, she wet herself. She was out of it until the paramedics got to our house. I have no idea she was actually out, but I know it seemed like it too the paramedics forever to get to our house.
Now, we’re in seizure land. She had an abnormal EEG, and was put on anti-seizure medication. The first one made her crazy, and we had to deal with it for 3 months. The 2nd one had the potential to give her a life threatening rash (it didn’t).
Her speech was bad to begin with (due to a brain injury), but now it is worse. Her reading has been affected. It’s hard to get homework done.
It’s been awful.
Those hackers deserve the death penalty. PERIOD.
Funny? You are a true waste of skin. Kindly do the world a favor and FOAD.
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