Three Indicted For Comcast Site Hack
'Kryogeniks' gang redirected traffic to its own Web page in 2008
Three alleged hackers this week were indicted for a 2008 attack that redirected traffic from the Comcast Website to a prank page.
Christopher Allen Lewis, 19, and James Robert Black Jr., 20, are accused of being the hackers "EBK" and "Defiant," who hijacked the Comcast domain in May of last year, according to news reports. The prank took down the cable giant's homepage and Web mail service for more than five hours and allegedly cost the company more than $128,000.
Michael Paul Nebel, 27, is also charged with being part of the hacker gang, which called itself "Kryogeniks."
Visitors to Comcast.net were redirected to a simple page reading "KRYOGENIKS EBK and DEFIANT RoXed COMCAST sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven."
As described in the indictment, the hackers got control of the domain with two phone calls, and an email was sent to the company's domain registrar, Network Solutions, from a hacked Comcast email account.
That gave them entry to the Network Solutions control panel for Comcast's 200 domains, according to the indictment.
The alleged hackers told reporters after the hack they had tried to notify Comcast of the vulnerability, but a member of the technical staff didn't take them seriously. At that point, they decided to play the prank, one of the hackers said.
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.
About the Author
You May Also Like
A Cyber Pros' Guide to Navigating Emerging Privacy Regulation
Dec 10, 2024Identifying the Cybersecurity Metrics that Actually Matter
Dec 11, 2024The Current State of AI Adoption in Cybersecurity, Including its Opportunities
Dec 12, 2024Cybersecurity Day: How to Automate Security Analytics with AI and ML
Dec 17, 2024The Dirt on ROT Data
Dec 18, 2024