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The sound of getting hacked is apparently Thunderstruck by AC/DC

The sound of getting hacked is apparently Thunderstruck by AC/DC

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At a press conference yesterday about the Ashley Madison hack, Toronto police distributed a flyer to the assembled reporters with the lyrics to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." The music mystery lasted a short while, before it was revealed that Ashley Madison employees came to work on July 12th (well before the data was made public) to the song blaring from the office's computers along with a "threatening message" from the hackers to publish private data belonging to millions of its users. As we all know, the hackers later made good on that threat.

It's not the first time a hack has been set to this particular soundtrack, either. Back in 2012, security researcher Mikko Hypponen received an email in which an Iranian scientist reported hearing the song coming from their computers. Though that story couldn't be verified, it's believed a tool called Metasploit was involved in the hack.

Heck, security researchers have created instructions online for recreating the hack if you're interested, including PowerShell code created by Christopher Campbell that was made available on GitHub after a security talk in 2013. (None of which means the Ashley Madison hackers used any of those tools, of course.)

Twelve-year-old me couldn't have imagined "Thunderstruck," a song about partying so hard in Texas that you end up lying prone on some railroad tracks, would become the de facto "You got hacked" song. Now, hearing the high-pitched wheedle of Angus Young's guitar should make us sit up and take notice — probably with a sense of dread. But then, when hasn't that been the case?

Let us listen to it now: