Japanese tourism site hit by pro-IS hackers
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31 Comments
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-6
Sam Jonnson
LOL do they really think some stupid small website 10 people a day go to is going to scare people? They're incapable of hacking large websites so they hack these tourism agency websites for some shitty little city.
17
MarkX
I wonder if this might not be a "homegrown" terrorist, fooling around. I might be wrong, but hacking some rather small tourism site seems a little below what IS usually does.
13
Yubaru
Wow, talk about jaded. No reason to dump on the city.
8
Farmboy
I agree with MarkX. Surely Isis has better things to do... this feels pretty home towny.
0
harvey pekar
I can see this story being flipped into "Foreigners visiting the tourism agency websites reaches all time high!"
4
Cyka Enkabaani UchuuJin
Nishinomiya is full of foreigners. Any website in Japan that gets hacked by them, no matter how small, is going to make news in Japan and create some level of fear among the Japanese.
2
Strangerland
Website/internet security in general is horrible in this country. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they are able to find websites to hack.
7
FernGully
MarkX, you bring up an interesting point. I doubt this is a large scale attack on ISIS. They have better things to do than hack Japanese websites.
I'm not intentionally fear-mongering, but this article also brings up another issue: cyberterrorism. This is the new way to attack countries and groups of people. Japan needs to train able bodied men and women to defend against these kinds of threats, as well as dish it out when the time comes. The websites brought up in this article are small beans compared to the things the Chinese, Russian, or American governments can do, as well as real terrorist groups.
Japan was the tech leader in the 70s and 80s. It's time to step up to that legacy again, but in cyberdefense.
9
lucabrasi
@FernGully
Why do you need to be "able-bodied" to work a computer?
6
FernGully
Sorry. Typo. I meant "able-minded".
4
gogogo
Japan and IT security == NOTHING
6
Alphaape
I have read stories that this is happening in the US also. It seems that some think that it is the result of general hackers and not being associated with ISIS. Just some people doing some bad things sort of as a prank. But it could be the result of some who may be sympathetic to ISIS.
Whatever the case, if they are just pranksters toying around, on the internet, they really don't know what they are getting themselves into. If they are associated with ISIS, they need to realize that if this keeps up they will get tracked down and wind up in sunny Cuba for an extended vacation.
0
Strangerland
Wouldn't you rather punish them?
7
Nessie
Like a bad rash. Fortunately, it's being treated. ;)
0
kitzrow
Is JAPANTODAY safe?
4
ReformedBasher
Good analogy.
2
HongoTAFEinmate
“Hacked by Islamic State (ISIS). We are everywhere ;),”
Typical, they turn up uninvited in Japan and expect the locals to understand English..... :)
2
kyushubill
Hmmm ... small tourism website in a rather insignificant area near a large city. Why not target the national tourism website or even the actual Osaka tourism website. Me thinks some disgruntled former employee got some pay back, or some bored moron had a little fun.
1
Disillusioned
I seriously doubt that IS would have anything to do with this. My guess is, it's just a prank by some Japanese Uni students.
0
davestrousers
This is about as serious a hacking incident as the time I made the classroom BBC micro display a message telling one of my mates he's a wanker in primary school.
0
ReformedBasher
I gotta wonder about the emoji at the end. I thought :-) was the nasty one. ;) seems to suggest they want us to have a nice day. Maybe they've rethought their policies?
Anyway I traveled though Nishinomiya last night and saw no signs of terrorist activity. Saw some pretty female uni students on the train though. Probably should question them and take down their details. Think there were guys as well, but my memory is a little hazy on that part.
-5
Frungy
I think people are missing the bigger picture here. Yes, these sites are easy to attack, but the entire idea here is simply to inform Japanese people that they're now on the IS's radar and they're now targets, and to create fear.
The purpose of terrorism is to create terror, and articles like this one just help the terrorists to achieve their objective. How many of us would have known about this if JT didn't report on it?
Now of course there's a flipside to that argument, that it is better to have clear reporting of the issue than rumours of IS cyberterrorists being inflated, but this article isn't trying to calm people down and say, "Look, its just a tiny website, don't over-react", instead the article links it in people's minds to beheadings in the first paragraph and in the second paragraph talks about " a series of similar attacks", while only listing two similarly minor inconveniences.
I think people need to copy the British here, "Keep Calm and Carry On".. and the media need to act more responsibly. The objective here is not for the media to do the terrorist's job for them by ramping up the fear level.
-2
slumdog
? Did you read the comments before yours before posting? It certainly seems as though you have not. Most of the posts above yours are basically saying the same thing in succint posts that you did in your much longer post.
-2
tapi0ca
Sam Jonnson et al
'they', thus, is not 'them'.
...
...
and thus doubtful if it is homegrown. Which does not rule out that it was not done within the borders.
0
Commodore Shmidlap (Retired)
10 print "YOU ARE STUPID!" 20 goto 10 run
Or some such. My first take is this was by someone in Japan. Even if not making a big deal out of this just gives the hacker what he or she wants.
3
Alistair Carnell
It's just some local nut job, craving attention. Or this intended to cower the Japanese public into agreeing with new secret Internet laws, or constitution changes?
Hardly seems the work of international terrorists. Tomorrow's headline: Pro-IS terror cell leave burning paper bags of dog poo on doorsteps.
4
Thunderbird2
Why Cuba? What has Cyberterrorism in Japan got to do with America? Are only the Americans permitted to deal with ISIS?
Anyway, for a small site to be attacked by ISIS seems a bit low key for them. Surely they'd hack something like NHK or one of the news sites, or even a government site, such as the JGSDF public relations site. I have a feeling this is a bunch of losers trying to be clever.
-1
sveinnyves
The media should call them Black Flag Group (BFG) instead of islamic state. No muslim nations consider them as islam. Dont call them what they wants to be called. Theres no state, just a group of twisted murderers.
0
frontandcentre
Sounds like most of the islamists you see on TV living in western countries - petulant children who are happy to exploit the freedom that they would deny to others. The only thing you can do is to laugh at these idiots.
0
Mar044
This is how you know the hackers are fools.
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