The past couple of months have seen a lot of cyber attacks and hacks on many high profile targets. We have seen Sony"s Playstation Network shut down, game publishers like Square Enix and Codemasters feel the heat. Most recently we have heard about an attempted cyber attack on the defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Now Venture Beat reports that yet another web site with a high profile owner has been hit with a cyber attack and it has some interesting features.
The web site itself is the main news site for the Public Broadcasting System, the TV network that"s partially funded by the US government but mostly funded by donations and pledge drives. The group responsible for the attack actually had a goal in mind. The site was altered to briefly show that cult rapper Tupac Shakur is in fact still alive.
Another way this attack differs from others is that a group is actually taking public responsibility for the attack. The group "LulzSec" has proclaimed that they handled the cyber attack on the PBS news site on their own Twitter feed. So far the hacker attacks on the other sites and networks mentioned above have not had any official proclamations by the people who handled them. Sony believes that the hacker group Anonymous, or at least people who have had dealings with the group, took part in the cyber attack on the Playstation Network which has yet to fully recover. Officially Anonymous has issued press releases denying any involvement in Sony"s cyber attacks.