North Korea's Facebook clone gets hacked by Scottish student

By Park Sae-jin Posted : May 30, 2016, 11:15 Updated : May 30, 2016, 11:15

[Courtesy of Xinhuanews]



A mysterious unnamed website using a North Korean Domain Name System (DNS) was spotted last week, and it's already been hacked by an 18-year-old college student from Scotland.

An unnamed site which its title says "Welcome to Our Social Network", was reported by Motherboard, an IT specialist media outlet last week, and the specialists added another news on Friday, a few hours after the release of its initial report, saying the Facebook clone which the north Koreans made had been hacked.

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a journalist from Motherboard wrote in his report, "I was posting links to the James Franco and Seth Rogen movie The Interview, which famously mocked North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un, on my newly-created account when I noticed something strange. On the bottom of the window, under the “Friends Suggestions” box, there was a “Sponsored” box containing a peculiar message."

The strange message said, "Uh, I didn't create this site just found the login". It was written by Andrew McKean, Motherboard reported.

The hacking method used by McKean was simple. The college student became the admin (administrator) of the website by just clicking "Admin" button at the bottom of the website and entering a username and a password, which was "admin" and "password".

By becoming an admin, McKean gained full control of the website. He told Motherboard that he could "delete and suspend users, change the site's name".

It seems that the original admins of the mysterious website have found out the breach by the student, and the Facebook clone is now offline.

Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com

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