The Korean language Mozilla Web site was hacked and defaced this week, prompting calls from some corners of the open source community to gain control of the independent site.
The job was likely the work of the notorious Simiens Crew, a Brazil-based outfit, and while the main page was not affected, other pages were replaced by the message “Simiens Crew ownz u viva os macacos.”
The phrase “os macacos” means “the monkeys” in Portuguese. It could be that the hackers simply have misspelled their own name, according to MozillaZine, a Web-based forum for the browser’s enthusiast. The proper spelling is “Simians” and means apes.
The crew has attacked several high-profile sites, often exploiting a vulnerability in the AWStats log file analyzer, according to MozillaZine. The phrase “Simiens Crew ownz u viva os macacos” has been used numerous times in the defacement of lyrics.koreamusic.net.
While Mozilla Europe, Mozilla Japan and Mozilla China have an official affiliation with the foundation, the Korean language Web site has not official connection.
Now some in the close-knit Mozilla community have voiced concerns, in foundation chat rooms, about security for the “high-profile site” and discussed steps to inform users that it is not directly affiliated with the Mozilla.
“If they can’t ensure that security, then Mozilla should use their trademark rights to enforce the site to either take appropriate measures or go live under another domain which has less of an ‘official’ flavor to it,” wrote one member.
Channy Yun, leader of Mozilla Korean Community, said the hack happened because there was not a patch for a PHP vulnerability for the company hosting mozilla.or.kr. He assured users he would backup and fix the problem with the ISP.
The community-run site offers localized Korean versions of Mozilla applications, Korean user support forums and a Korean translation of MozillaZine.
The Mozilla community site hack comes a week after MSN Korea was knocked offline Thursday after it reportedly discovered that the site had been hacked and apparently booby-trapped in order to pilfer users’ passwords.