BETFAIR TARGETED ON WORLD HACKERS DAY

Monday September 5, 2011 :  Hackers say it was just for fun.
 
Internet visitors to high profile websites The Telegraph, Acer, National Geographic, The Register, UPS, Vodaphone and online betting exchange Betfair were re-routed to an unexpected destination last evening (Sunday) for approximately three hours when Domain Name System (DNS) service provider's Netnames and Ascio were targeted by hackers calling themselves "TurkGuvenligi".
 
TurkGuvenligi, who have claimed credit for many similar attacks over the past few years, redirected website traffic to a webpage that said "We TurkGuvenligi declare this day as World Hackers Day – Have Fun ;)."
 
The hackers, whose name translates to the "Turkish Security League", told The Guardian newspaper in a Twitter interview: ""We usually choose some big targets and find a way to access them. Sometimes it takes months, but harder makes it funnier ;)".
 
DNS attacks reportedly do not affect the website itself or obtain customer data but simply redirect the users chosen URL to a different URL selected by the hackers.
 
A Betfair spokersperson said: "The Betfair site itself was unaffected and we do not believe that customers were at risk as a result of the incident. The tech and security teams have been working with Netnames and are monitoring the situation closely".