ADV Cleans Up Hacker Mess

Date: 2006 May 16 11:31

Posted by Jeremy

ADV Films fixes up an attack by Turkish hackers.

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Anime News Network reported that ADV Films was able to finish cleaning up an attack on its website. On Saturday, May 6, the site was hacked into by Ayyildiz, a group of Turkish hackers who have defaced the pages of several websites with their propaganda logo message, which states that the Armenian genocide was in self-defense. The message also attacks the Kurdish PKK and their backers, stating that any country that is treacherous towards Turkey will have its websites "erased from the Internet".

Thankfully, ADV was able to repair the damage to its site. They removed the single hacked front end catching server that same morning, corrected the vulnerability that led to the attack, and were able to resume regular operations the following evening on Sunday, May 7. No customer data was affected in any way.

ADV CTO Mark Williams said that the attack gave them an opportunity to take advantage of the downtime to implement several planned expansions to the site, including the addition of new servers. These expansions took longer than Williams would have liked, as it was the weekend and several members of the staff were out of town. "Plus," he adds, "we like Turkish terrorist music."