At least two major hip hop websites, SOHH.com & AllHipHop.com were maliciously hacked yesterday, and briefly transformed into hate pages with racist, incendiary images and text before being overloaded and shut down in an apparent cyber attack. A notorious online community of skilled hackers has claimed responsibility and promise to keep sabotaging the site until it folds permanently.
However, some are beginning to speculate that the racist images and comments may have been fabricated by disgruntled current and/or former employees or associates who coordinated to bring the site down internally. * Either way, both the act and the overtones are disturbing. There is a documented presence of the super-secretive group that has claimed responsibility of intimidating, hateful, white supremacist cyber activities. Felicia Palmer, who is the CEO of SOHH.com, the more severely targeted website, was alarmed and angered enough to issue the following statement to immediately after the attack:
“As many of you are already aware, SOHH.com has been under attack by hackers this week. We noticed the first wave of attacks in our vBulletins forums and as of this morning the whole site was compromised.
It appears that hackers are specifically targeting Black, Hispanic, Asian and Jewish youth who ascribe to hip hop culture. Other websites, including AllHipHop and Da Piff forums, have also been compromised or threatened this week.
We are managing this situation on several fronts. We have taken down the server to patch the security breach and put in protections for future attacks. Also, as this is an international issue, it is being addressed by The FBI and the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group.
We realize the hackers attacked SOHH.com because of our stature in the hip hop space and the people we serve. Unfortunately, we did a poor job of protecting SOHH.com from imminent threats from people who hate our community simply because of our racial and ethnic makeup.
This has brought to light our vulnerabilities and those of the internet publisher and users as a whole. What’s possible now is for us to join together to identify and eliminate this threat.
If you are under attack and have any information about these attacks please submit a report to the FBI cyber crimes unit here:”https://complaint.ic3.gov/
Similarly, allhiphop.com issued this statement shortly after its attack:
“Urban culture and lifestyle has come under attack by a group of cyber terrorists. AllHipHop and SOHH, two pioneering websites that have been in the industry for over 10 years, are appalled by the unprovoked racist attacks of these cyber terrorists. With all the social strides that we have seen for several years, it is sad to see that this sort of blatant, hateful racism still exists in 2008 – a time of tremendous possibility. Together, AllHipHop and SOHH, are committed to relentlessly pursuing these attackers, using every resource available, to ensure the capture of these criminals and prevention of repeat offenses.”
Chuck Creekmur and Greg Watkins, AllHipHop.com Co-founders
I don’t know about this one. It makes me uneasy on several fronts regarding online security, regulation, and protection. I’ll be watching closely to determine how it develops and is resolved.
sooooo….nominations for the 2008 black weblog awards have commenced and will continue until august 15. i’m really bad at networking with the “powers that be” but i figured what the heck. if you’ve enjoyed my blog at all over the past 5 months and believe in what i write about here, please take the time and nominate me.
go here. feel free to nominate me in any category you deem appropriate, but please pay particular attention to the “blog of the year,” “best personal blog,” “best new blog,” & “blog to watch.” oh heck, how about “best writing in a blog” for good measure too. 