The group of Romanian hacktivists calling themselves Romanian National
Security (RNS) have attacked and defaced multiple websites belonging to the
biggest Italian public television company Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), as
well as leading Italian newspapers La Stampa and Corriere della Sera. The
message left behind on the hacked Web properties condemns the association of the
Romanian people with the Romani ethnic group, commonly referred to as
gypsies.
RNS is a group of Romanian nationalist hackers who appear to have taken issue
with how some international publications depict Romania and its people. Their
initial hit was
carried out earlier this month against
renowned British newspaper The Daily Telegraph and resulted in the defacement of
two websites hosted under the telegraph.co.uk domain.
A week later, the group retaliated in a similar fashion against
reputable French newspaper Le Monde for a
joke made by humorist Jonathan Lambert during a TV show on national television.
The staged performance, which had Lambert present the so-called “new Romanian
salute” by imitating a beggar with his hand raised, was strongly criticized in
Romania for being offensive and racist.
Romanian security blog HackersBlog reports that www.citizenreport.rai.it, a
community website owned and operated by the Italian public service broadcaster
RAI, was hacked by members of the RNS via SQL injection. The hackers left behind
a message, expressing anger at the local media.
The attacks on Italian publications continued with complete defacements of
tuttoaffari.lastampa.it and citymusiclab.city.corriere.it/eventi/, two websites
belonging to La Stampa and Corriere della Sera, respectively. At the time of
writing this article, the index pages of both sites display a shield logo in the
colors of the Romanian flag and the same threatening message used in the
Radiotelevisione Italiana hack.
|
“It’s time to close our fingers into a fist and unforgivingly strike as many
times as need be, for you to reap the harvest of your lies. We promise you will
not forget about Romania and her past again. We, descendants of Trajan and
Decebalus, are not a nation of gypsies! We have run out of patience and, in the
name of Romanians everywhere, we warn that if you don’t stop presenting our
entire people as Romani or gypsies, even more tricolor flags [reference to
Romania's red, yellow and blue flag] will be raised; until all untruths are
exposed and apologies are issued,” the message signed by RNS reads.
A Romanian saying, roughly translating into “Eagles may occasionally fly
lower than chickens, but chickens will never soar in the sky,” is displayed at
the bottom, while Ciprian Porumbescu’s Ballad for Violin and Orchestra plays in
the background.
Mirrors of the defaced websites are available via MirrorTurk for the
RAI and
Corriere della Sera attacks and Zone-H for the
La Stampa one.
According to HackersBlog, RNS members also found vulnerabilities on lordine.it,
storialibera.it, giornaledicalabria.it, unita.it, pontediferro.org and
momentosera.it, but these websites have not yet been defaced.
Source:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Romanian-Nationalists-Hit-Several-Italian-Media-Outlets-141062.shtml
Antena 1: