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Hackers Attack MacRumors Macworld Keynote Coverage

8:11 am, January 7th, 2009, Ed Sutherland

Hackers Tuesday forced MacRumors to halt its live-blogging coverage of Apple marketing exec Phil Schiller’s keynote speech at Macworld Expo. The hack hit MacRumorsLive.com, a domain created for commenting on the annual San Francisco, Calif. Mac-focused tradeshow.

Interspersed with live updates about news of iPhoto upgrades were offensive messages, including one declaring Apple CEO “Steve Jobs just died.”

In a statement posted about an hour after Macworld Expo opening, the site’s founder Arnold Kim apologized to readers for the attack.

The source of the attack is unclear, although some evidence appeared to point to a group known as 4Chan. The phrase “4CHAN FTW” (”for the win”) was often part of the hacked blogging messages, according to CNET’s Caroline McCarthy.

McCarthy cited a Twitter user, writing “4Chan members had been circulating MacRumors passwords” Monday night prior to the keynote.

Another group called Myg0t, may also have been involved, according to the report.

The cost of the hack may go beyond embarrassment to lost advertising revenue.

Posted by Ed Sutherland in News | Comment on this article

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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5 comments

    I witnessed the attack, since I was reading MacRumorsLive.com (always great coverage). It was a shame, and I hope those A.H. get what they deserve. LONG LIVE MACRUMORS!!! All my support Arnold!

    Matias, on January 7th, 2009 at 8:34 am

    I noticed the following line in the CNET article:

    “The 4Chan skulduggery appears to have first been noticed by Twitter users and independent blogs like Topherchris.com, which took the screenshot above.”

    Really? Twitter users, eh? Actually, I noticed it at the time. I just don’t use Twitter because IT’S STUPID

    boris-J, on January 7th, 2009 at 8:45 am

    4chan’s IRC room was virtually silent durring the blitz.

    However, XKCD’s IRC room was livid with comments regarding the blitz as well as the admin login URL.

    From the discussion, it seemed that MacRumors failed to set the correct permissions on their bloging software thus allowing anyone with moderate familiarity to gain access.

    bill, on January 7th, 2009 at 9:14 am

    I saw the hacks live as they occurred. I did a few double-takes and quickly caught on to what was happening. Such a shame

    nickux, on January 7th, 2009 at 10:09 am

    I saw it happen in real time. It was funny as hell.

    Church of Apple, on January 8th, 2009 at 11:59 am