Sometimes hackers do not pursue monetary or operation disruption purposes but seem only interested in demonstrating their capabilities, claim web application security specialists. This appears to be the case of sporting goods company Asics, which had to issue an apology after screens at one of its major stores in Australia showed pornographic content for hours.
The screens, placed just above the entrance to the store in Auckland, showed the adult content by the hour until employees began arriving at the store, around 10 a.m. Through their social media, the company claimed it was a hacking incident:
“This morning, an unidentified actor
accessed the systems that control the screens in our store in Auckland with the
intention of displaying inappropriate content. We would like to offer apologies
to anyone who has seen this content. Now we’re working with a web application
security firm to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Various local media claim that pornographic
content was reproduced on the Screens of the Asics store for almost nine hours,
as it was not possible to deactivate the store screens until employees started
their workday and contacted the web application security firm.
As for the reaction of passers-by who
encountered this unpleasant surprise, the New Zealand Herald revisited some
testimonies which, in fact, speak of how surprising this incident was, though
most of those passing by the store of Asics simply stopped to take a look and
then go their way without paying much attention.
However, the most concerned about this incident
were parents transiting the area with children. “I couldn’t believe what
was happening; this is completely offensive and inappropriate and my children
shouldn’t be exposed to that kind of content,” says one woman who
witnessed the incident in the company of two young children.
As the International Institute for Cyber
Security (IICS) web application security specialists mentioned, this appears to
be an example of a hacker or hacker group encountering a security flaw and
exploiting it for no apparent reason. So far it is not known that the company
has received hacking threats or there is an intrusion into its networks, so the
perpetrators of the incident must have acted only for fun.
Such unmotivated hacking attacks often occur
among members of the gamer community, there are even platforms for contracting
and launching denial
of service (DDoS) attacks against the servers of some gaming platform
online video game, which leaves other users unable to access online platforms.
Although the FBI has been dedicated to shutting down multiple of these domains
in recent years, this practice remains very popular among the gamer community.
