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SALT LAKE CITY -- The Deseret News was forced to shut down a Church News Internet site Thursday because an anti-Mormon hacker managed to hijack the account. The electronic invader actually seized control for at least three days.
Whoever did it posted rogue messages and pretended to be an official source of Church News. We don't know how many messages the hacker sent. It took three days to flush the invader out because the hacker managed to lock the electronic door after getting in.
The Deseret News uses the Twitter account to send out links to Church News stories.
Joe Cannon, editor of the Deseret News, said, "The postings were primarily just things that you would see on any anti-Mormon Web site, only now pretending to be, well, this is the Church News.... "
The hacker had figured out the Deseret News password, according to computer expert Pete Codella. "That's the fun of it for the hacker, to spend that time and guess it and then post rogue messages."
The hacker may have guessed the password or had inside information. "Or they could have used technology to find the password, and they've been trying to hack it for a while," said Codella. "You never know."
Surprisingly, the Deseret News couldn't stop the outgoing messages. The hacker had free rein for three days. Cannon said, "The most devious aspect of this was the hacker was able to pretend like he was us and change the password, and now, all of a sudden, we're locked out of our own site."
For three days, the Deseret News frantically tried to get Twitter to return its calls. It was considering going to federal court until lawyers finally got Twitter's attention.
Cannon said, "Literally, within minutes, they just took the site down. Now the whole effort is to try to find out who the hacker was and what, if anything, we can do about that."
Codella blames Twitter's feeble security. "I think Twitter could beef it up," he said. "I think they could do a better job, and I know they've had issues with sites being hacked before."
Cannon said, "It's a problem, yeah, I'd say it's a big problem that Twitter has, yeah."
The net effect may have been small; only a few hundred people use the Church News Twitter service, but the Twitter phenomenon is exploding.
The Deseret News editor says this is a cautionary tale that many institutions need to pay attention to.
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
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