The site, called “Cash Gordon”, was intended to highlight the Labor party’s ties to the trade union Unite, with the slogan: “Charlie (Wheelan) gives the cash, Gordon gives the power.” The page was designed to spread the campaign via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. However, hackers discovered that basic security measures weren’t in place on the page.
Visitors to the site found themselves being redirected to pornography websites, or the Labour home page. One of the sites key features was to display any message posted on Twitter if it included the term “#cashgordon”. But pranksters soon took advantage of this by writing anti-Conservative tweets including the campaign hashtag, all of which appeared in a box on the Conservative Party website. One tweet read, “So are the Tories really displaying an unmoderated Twitter stream on a campaign website?” while another said, “Tories can’t work the internet. Wouldn’t trust them to run a tuck-shop.”
Later on Monday it was discovered that the developers who built the Cash Gordon website had not included a standard security device to protect the message facility from outside users. By writing Twitter messages containing “#cashgordon” and their own piece of web code, Internet users they were able to redirect visitors to any other site on the Internet. While some visiters were sent to hardcore pornography websites the “code injection” attacks sent other users to a video of Never Gonna Give You Up, the Rick Astley pop song, in a well-known Internet joke known as “Rickrolling”.
The Conservatives were forced to take down the website so the security loophole could be fixed and so far the problems appear to have been fixed. A party spokesman said, “There was an attempt made to redirect #CashGordon users to other websites. We’ve made the necessary adjustments to the site and the #CashGordon campaign has now led to many thousands people hearing about Unite’s funding stranglehold over the Labour Party.”
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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