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Crime Security The Almighty Buck

Hacker Took Over BBC Server, Tried To Sell Access On Christmas Day 41

An anonymous reader writes in with this story about a hacker that took over a BBC server during the Christmas holiday. "A hacker secretly took over a computer server at the BBC, Britain's public broadcaster, and then launched a Christmas Day campaign to convince other cyber criminals to pay him for access to the system. While it is not known if the hacker found any buyers, the BBC's security team responded to the issue on Saturday and believes it has secured the site, according to a person familiar with the cleanup effort. A BBC spokesman declined to discuss the incident. 'We do not comment on security issues,' he said."
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Hacker Took Over BBC Server, Tried To Sell Access On Christmas Day

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  • Merry Christmas ... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ... to me!

    These guys are getting a little smarter. Not a lot of eyes on the servers on Christmas. And a lot of card traffic at Target on Black Friday (still a great take even if would have been discovered after just one day).

    Timing is everything folks. Just when you least expect them ...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    But the Doctor fixed it!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    People in the UK pay to see a made-for-TV Doctor Who movie in theaters.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, perhaps some cyber criminal could have written and uploaded a decent script for it!

      • by isorox ( 205688 )

        Yeah, perhaps some cyber criminal could have written and uploaded a decent script for it!

        Day of the doctor - the November 50th special with tennant, was generally acknowledged to be great. As was the Paul McGann night of the doctor YouTube clip.

        The Christmas regeneration episode - time of the doctor, was really confusing.

    • Re:It would work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30, 2013 @11:34AM (#45819047)

      People in the UK pay to see a made-for-TV Doctor Who movie in theaters.

      People all over the world pay to see Movies in movie in theatres when they could torrent it and watch it on a crappy TV or a computer monitor.

      It's about the quality of the experience, not penny pinching. This is especially the case if you are a big enough fan of Dr Who, Star War, Avatar, The Hobbit, Aliens, Predator.... etc. going to see the movie is actually worth it and watching it on TV, particularly the first time you watch it, is spoiling the experience. I watched the Dr Who movie in 3D and to me it was worth it even though I'm not a hardcore fan.

      • by isorox ( 205688 )

        People in the UK pay to see a made-for-TV Doctor Who movie in theaters.

        People all over the world pay to see Movies in movie in theatres when they could torrent it and watch it on a crappy TV or a computer monitor.

        It's about the quality of the experience, not penny pinching. This is especially the case if you are a big enough fan of Dr Who, Star War, Avatar, The Hobbit, Aliens, Predator.... etc. going to see the movie is actually worth it and watching it on TV, particularly the first time you watch it, is spoiling the experience. I watched the Dr Who movie in 3D and to me it was worth it even though I'm not a hardcore fan.

        If it wasn't ruined by 3D I could see the argument, especially when you're watching with a lot of similar minded folks.

        I went to see the Hobbit last week (2D, I'd have preferred a 2D HFR but that didn't seem to be available). After paying the £18 for two tickets, we were subjected to uncomfortable seating with about as much leg room as a real theatre, and someone actually yelling at the screen! The first 15 minutes were adverts, then another 15 minutes of trailers. And of course the "you are a crimina

      • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

        If you really are a fan of the Hobbit (the book) I strongly urge you *not* to see the 2nd movie, and if you did, you're most certainly not going to see the third - but that time it'll not be on my advice, you'll get to that conclusion all by yourself.

        What a nightmare this movie was...

        • by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

          Yea, I saw the first one and was quite disappointed by the movie. I don't mind trimming bits to speed up movies. Books are quite long and can take days to read (or more for the slower readers or readers with less time to read) but adding extra bits and especially the wrong bits had me pretty unhappy with the experience.

          [John]

      • by EzInKy ( 115248 )

        Eventually they will become like the rest of us and wait until they can view it at home. Movies are so much better when you are in total control of the volume and pause buttons. And really, would you enjoy interrupting the flick everytime someone got a phone call?

      • That is only true if you aren't smart enough to figure out how much the experience costs.

        Hint: An awful lot less than the cost of a year's worth of regular movie viewing.

        My cheap home theatre setup can make the couch shake, my TV is perfectly adequate for my needs and I can watch it with people I want, not random strangers making noise, talking, phones, etc.... I always get the best seat in the house and I can hit pause whenever I need to.

  • The pros of the NSA have a full catalog [spiegel.de] of nice things for sale, and you can use it to gain access to mostly everything.
  • by Jeff Flanagan ( 2981883 ) on Monday December 30, 2013 @11:31AM (#45819031)
    The BBC has plenty of experience with Christmas invasions. I expect a police-box was involved in dealing with the problem.
  • It's Hacker [bbc.co.uk] time!

  • So did Acid Burn kick Crash Override out of the system?

  • The walls of the Big British Castle have been breached, the serfs and tithe payers are at risk of pilfer from outside forces. We can't possibly have non-sanctioned extortion take place, we have a charter by jove!
  • Some kid was really upset they couldn't get Family Guy on BBC iPlayer. Santa takes this stuff pretty seriously I say.

As you will see, I told them, in no uncertain terms, to see Figure one. -- Dave "First Strike" Pare

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