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Would somebody more knowledgeable care to explain how they managed this ?
The "unprecedented" cyber-attack on French television channel TV5Monde represents a major "step up" in the Internet warfare being waged by highly specialised jihadist hackers, experts said Thursday.
Since January's three-day Islamist attacks in Paris that killed 17 people, hackers have launched hundreds of assaults on French websites, from denial of service attacks that snarl up web traffic to full-scale hacks.
But taking over a television channel and blocking programming—as happened to TV5Monde—is another matter entirely, experts believe, an "unprecedented" attack, according to the station's boss Yves Bigot.
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-french-tv-hack-cyberjihadism.html
(Score: 5, Informative) by captain normal on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:24AM
Saw this on El Reg yesterday (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/09/isis_french_tv_channel_disturbed_hebdo/). The hackers cut TV5 Monde's ability to transmit live. In order to understand this, realize that television studio facilities are usually many miles from the transmission site. The signal from the studio is then sent (now Days) by fiber optic and/or microwave to the transmitter. This transmission is usually carried by the local TelCo. The transmission involves several switches and server connections. The TelCo's facilities are about as secure as your Grandma's stash in her mattress (unless she had a shotgun and a couple of big dogs like my Gramdma).
Doesn't take much of a script-kiddie to hack the phone company. Of course it is harder than back when Woz was hacking into the toll lines...but not that much harder.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:27AM
You just walk into a shop and take stuff.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RobotMonster on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:00AM
It's also not that hard if you can acquire the passwords.
Ars Technica reported that TV5 Monde exposed its own passwords when it broadcast an interview about the hacking incident. [arstechnica.com]
This post-hack leak didn't help the hackers unless they had a time machine, but the interviews revealed that in addition to the passwords being stuck up on paper next to monitors (easily seen in the background of the interview), the passwords themselves were terrible. One of their major passwords was "azerty12345" which is the French keyboard equivalent of "qwerty12345". Their YouTube password, if it had been English, would have been "ThePasswordForYouTube".
Any number of people would have had access to these passwords, and they'd all be listed on the French edition of the common-stupid-password-list.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:09AM
They're French. Maybe they just surrendered their passwords?
(Score: 1) by basicbasicbasic on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:55PM
Jesus, I honestly thought this xenophobic bullshit slur would go away after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Guess not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:09PM
And what was your expectation for when the childish US-bashing in every story here was going to go away?
And what is the relevance to the Charlie Hebdo attacks? You are now not allowed to even mention the French in anything but reverent tones? The attacks on a well-known satirical site now provides cover to a whole fucking country? Geez. My PC checklist gets longer and longer all the time.
(Score: 1) by basicbasicbasic on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:58PM
I thought things might change simply because the attacks showed the French people in a sympathetic light on the US news, showed them as vulnerable human beings. I thought that might have finally blown away some of the old bigotry.
Not being an asshole does not mean you can only mention the French in "reverent tones", it simply means not being an asshole. You don't have to swing all the way from blind hatred to blind adoration.
Are you suggesting that Americans are bashing the French because of anti-US sentiment? That they then feel the need to bash someone else to even it out? Otherwise I don't see how this is relevant. I don't have to point out every incidence of xenophobia to point out one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @12:43AM
> And what was your expectation for when the childish US-bashing in every story here was going to go away?
Tu quoque much?
The stupid thing about it is that its false. France is basically tied with the UK for the 2nd largest military-industrial complex in the world.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Sunday April 12 2015, @04:17PM
> thought this xenophobic bullshit slur would go away
How can it be a phobia when there's nothing to fear from a people whose language has no word for "victory"?