The New Vision Web page Hacked?!

By the time I started typing this, the online version of one of Uganda's top national newspapers, The New Vision, had been hacked into for several hours. All we could see on The New Vision website, all over the world, was a blank screen! Well we thought it had been hacked into. And now before I wrap up my little post, The New Vision has regained control and posted The Monday Edition. It is midnight in Uganda. The battle is over! And my story almost just changed.


Akira, my Japanese friend, where he to be an ardent reader of the paper's online version, would have said to me this afternoon, "Papa, everysing is gloomy!" This time he would have been quite spot on with the usage of this word. And you can understand why. This guy often says it is gloomy when he drops one hundred Yen!

All the links were inactive.

I first noticed something strange when I searched for a picture in an archived article that was published by The New Vision last year. I got the picture but it was a little strange that it was against a backdrop of the "Batman: Arkham Asylum Welcome to the Mad House" wall paper. I went on with my work. A few hours later, a friend's status update on facebook shouted out, "The New Vision has been hacked!"

I hurriedly checked out the site and was shocked to find a black page with the words "Website Going regular Maintanance. We shall be back shortly". Now this was extra gloomy! There was definitely an evil dark cloud hanging over The New Vision. Being the nosy guy that I am, I couldn't help noticing the errors in the message: the grammar and the spelling (maintanance). I know that The New Vision usually has some issues with its webpage temporarily going off (apparently due to too much traffic) and some spelling mistakes here and there but this one was in a league of its own. Maybe the IT guys were actually doing maintenance, and being that their work involves the flow of electrons, getting the English right lay at the bottom of their list or worries. But then it took quite longer than normal. Over six hours.

Website Going regular Maintanance. We shall be back shortly

Unsatisfied, and still inquisitive, I continued searching for The New Vision page and finally landed on The New Vision page showing the Joker and the words " REALQW IS BACK. HAHAHAHAHAHA. HACKED AND DEFACED BT REALQW AGAIN..." Now this wasn't regular maintenance. Someone had hacked into their system. Again! I guess the The Vision IT team was running all over the place trying to cover up and struggling to restore sanity. Or were they negotiating with Realqw like it was a hostage situation?!

The choice of the Joker is a revelation of the sinister motives of Realqw: pulling a prank!

  
Thinking that the whole Vision empire was under attack, I checked out The New Vision's kid sisters (The Sunday Vision, Bukedde, Bukedde Ku Ssande, Orumuri, Rupiny and Etop). Thankfully all of them were still on line. Safe and sound.
 
It was difficult to imagine the hacker's motives. But it is known that some of these guys hack or crack systems just for fun. And the use of the Joker's image probably suggests that the hacker was playing around and was wallowing in pleasure at this achievement. Some simply want to expose the security weaknesses of your system. Others might be aiming at earning some bucks from you. They hack and you pay their tech guys to restore your system. Some might use it as a technique to frustrate your business. Whatever the case might be, they serve to show that the internet is not a very safe place. 

I had already started thinking about the impact of the hacking. Would it lead to an increase in sales the following day since the online version would have been unvailable to the readers? Would it in anyway affect on line advertising, depending on how long the paper is offline? Would it force The New Vision to redesign their webpage, so that it for instance has a better search option? The bit of having to sign in when searching for an article in their archive is sickening!

And what if MTN was hacked into? Would customers stand the risk of losing airtime? Then I imagined something more serious: the 2011 elections are around the corner. What if someone hacked into the electoral commission system? The tallying center. The scenarios can stretch a mile but thankfully The New Vision is back on line. Whether they have been oiling their system or they had been hacked into the fact is that they are back. And it is the same old webpage. It has been fully maintained!

As for Mr. Realqw, his achievement was definitely one hell of a porcine orgasm. Long and satisfying. But it still came to an end! Just like all of them always do.

OMG! I think Papa celebrated a little too early. Mr. Realqw might be having another one. Could be an orgy! The Sunday Vision online front page has also been done.

At around 1:00 am (Uganda) Monday 18, October The Sunday Vision front page also gets defaced by Realqw