Those looking for their St. John Trade-winds Internet fix on Monday morning, August 14, were hindered by a hacker.
Anyone who logged on to www.stjohnnews.com that day was met with a message that the site had been hacked by Kaos.
The Web site was restored Monday afternoon by Andy Clausen, owner of Savant Media Group LLC, host of the St. John Tradewinds Web site.
Kaos is a Remote Administration Tool, or RAT, according to the spyware removal site www.2-spyware.com.
This is used by hackers for gaining access to distant PCs, according to the Web site. A RAT program works by a simple but effective principle the hacker infects the machine with a server program and can control it using a client on his computer. The author is a hacker called MaNCuBuZ from a group called Greek United Cyberpunx.
St. John Tradewinds readers who logged on to www.stjohnnews.com on Monday should not be worried about the hacker affecting their computer, according to Clausen.
No Virus Found
There was no evidence of a virus found, according to Clausen, who said he is not familiar with this particular hacker.
It is likely the St. John Tradewinds site was chosen to be hacked through a broad scan searching for security vulnerabilities, rather than targeted specifically, according to Clausen.
I doubt they specifically targeted Tradewinds since the message they posted was not related to Tradewinds or the V.I. in any way, he said. It may likely be a result of a scan.
Before Clausen could implement security patches, www.stjohnnews.com was hacked again by Kaos on Tuesday afternoon, August 22. However, security is now in place, and similar incidents will likely be avoided in the future.
Security Patches In Place
I am implementing numerous software patches to safeguard against the vulnerabilities in the software, said Clausen on Tuesday morning.
The photos and foreign language displayed on www.stjohnnews.com by the hacker suggest the desire to push a political agenda; however, this may not be the case, according to Clausen.
I didnt attempt to translate the text on the image that was linked, he said. Many hackers do this sort of thing just for the sake of doing it.
Following the implementation of security fixes on Tuesday, readers of www.stjohnnews.com can now be assured that the site is safe and secure.
