TechCrunch, the popular Internet, Social Networking and Technology related site was hacked 3 times by unknown assailants who might have made use of the vulnerabilities of WordPress 2.8.4.

The first time it was hacked, there was just a “hi” message, and the second time it was hacked, there was a link to a site with illegal content and the third time too, it was linked back to the site. TechCrunch administrators later put up a notice revealing their security was compromised.

It is not clear if the hacking was similar to the ones faced by Twitter and Baidu, but it looks like it is not. There is no information available at the moment as to who could have done the said deed. TechCrunch is one of the most popular sites in the world and has an Alexa ranking of 373 and a 216 one in the United States. It would be interesting to hear what Michael Arrington has to say about the hacking!

While it could be easy to speculate that the hacker would have had a malicious intent, it is very well possible that it could be one of the geeks with a psychopathic streak to his personality. This brings to the issue of hacking which is not controlled, and not punished severely. It is time that Internet crimes like hacking is penalized severely and even the so-called “ethical hacking” is arrested before it turns out to be unethical.

Via: Softpedia