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Netscape Hacked, Professor Denies Sexiness Claims
Jason Lee Miller
Staff Writer
2006-07-26
 Security News RSS Feed
Some apparent Digg.com fans hacked into Netscape.com using a Cross Site Scripting vulnerability (XSS), creating snarky popup messages directing Netscapers to go elsewhere.
The attack was reported by F-Secure, who provided screenshots, early Wednesday morning. The popup messages read:
"this site sucks. Go here instead"
"Hi to all you Diggers out there ;)"
"Tom Way is the sexiest man alive."
Who's Tom Way? While we can't be certain, but a Google search leads us to a Dr. Tom Way, who teaches computer science at Villanova University. For convenience and conspiracy purposes, we're assuming it is this Tom Way and not the photographer.
SecurityProNews contacted Dr. Way to inquire about the matter. Were the hackers students? Is he really the sexiest man alive? We'll need some data to back that up.
"I have no idea why my name appears in the popup at Netscape," he said. "While it is true that I am ONE of the sexiest men alive, I'm not certainly not THE sexiest man alive."
Dr. Way admitted that it was possible that one or more of his students "decided to explore the boundaries of technology," but none of his students had mentioned anything to him.
The attack comes a short time after Netscape introduced its Digg.com-style social interface and Web 2.0-boss Jason Calacanis offered Digg contributors $1,000 per month to convert.
It appears the hack so far is limited to just the popup prank, and that no malicious code was inserted.
Netscape
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About the Author:
Jason is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. He covers business, technology, and security issues.
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