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284 Pakistani domain names reportedly hijacked, affecting Google, Apple, and Microsoft

284 Pakistani domain names reportedly hijacked, affecting Google, Apple, and Microsoft

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MSN.org.pk defaced
MSN.org.pk defaced

More than 280 popular ".pk" domain names, including that of the Pakistani Google homepage, have reportedly been hijacked by a Turkish hacking crew known as "eboz." Addresses including Apple.pk, Microsoft.pk, and Google.com.pk had their DNS settings changed earlier today to point to two alternative nameservers at freehostia.com, with some, such as msn.org.pk, still displaying the hackers' message at the time of writing.

A list of 110 of the hacked domain names has been posted by Pakistani programmer Irfan Ahmad, who provides the full figure on Twitter and notes that they are all administered by the San Francisco-based company MarkMonitor. As TechCrunch points out, eboz has claimed responsibility for hundreds of defacements since 2009, but does not appear to have any clear motive. Along with the simple English message "Pakistan Downed," the group offers two cryptic statements in Turkish, the second translating as "Hello friends who are still alive not dead!"

Thanks, Shahzeb!