Friday, August 19, 2011

Hackers attack site of Catholic youth celebrations

From AFP:

Hackers temporarily blocked the official World Youth Day site Thursday just as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Madrid to preside over the festivities, a spokeswoman for the event said.

The site (www.madrid11.com) was taken down for about an hour at around midday (1000 GMT) and the event's computer experts were trying to determine the source of the attack, the spokeswoman said.

"We received in recent days anonymous warnings by email that our site would be attacked. The priority now is to ensure everything is up and running, then we will decide if we will file a police complaint," she said.
A press release from the site itself:

The official website of World Youth Day (WYD), madrid11.com, has been suffering particularly aggressive hacking attempts for several days. Out of respect for millions of people who are following us around the world and the 4,900 accredited communication professionals at WYD, we believe it is necessary to inform the public about this hacking attempt. We regret any distress caused, we thank you for your patience and we are doing our utmost to rectify the problem.

WYD also is grateful for all the support that it continues to receive from the overwhelming majority of Spanish people and people worldwide, who share with us the desire of freedom for all, always through peaceful and respectful means.

While we recover the normal functioning of the website we invite you to continue the  conversation through our news aggregator www.somos.madrid11.com and on social websites Facebook, Twitter (@madrid11_en), Tuenti, Orkut, Mixi and 20 other social networks throughout the world.

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