The PPG Labs subdomain of the well renowned website of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been hacked by a Kurdish hacker going by the name of SA3D HaCk3D. The hacker left an Anti-ISIS message on the defacement of the page stating:
HaCkeD By SA3D HaCk3D
Long Live to peshmarga
KurDish HaCk3rS WaS Here
f*cked
F*CK ISIS !
The hack has a lot of resemblances to the openSUSE news blog website that was recently hacked by a different Kurdish hacker, going by the name of MuhamedEmad, who also posted the exact same message with the same exact defacement page. This could mean the hackers may be working together to spread their message and may have used the same vulnerability and exploit to hack into the subdomain of the famous institution.
The website as of the writing of this article is still defaced.
Hacks like this have become common place now. It’s been a rough week for MIT because, just recently a hacker going by the name of Trenggalek G3tar hacked the NeuroSolutions MIT website as well. It is believed the same bug was exploited to hack the subdomain.
UPDATE: Before the PPG Labs website could be recovered, the defacement seems to have been taken over by another hacker going by the name of Panataran. It must be a complete mess of a job for the web administrators given the severity of the breaches. It is unsure as of yet if the hackers have downloaded any important data or any important researched data from the MIT research website.
Any further updates will be posted when and if the story develops.