Went to a website (madphilosophers.com) which had a big banner over its home page that said it was being hacked by cyber root. What does that mean in terms of visiting that site again and am I going to be hacked from going there while it was being hacked?
CyberRooT
CyberRooT is the name of a very prolific group of hackers who leave their ‘tag’ all over forums and websites on the Internet. They usually leave the tag “Hacked by CyberRooT” and call themselves the Turkish Hacker. They often hack the first page of a website or forum, which can cause understandable concern for people who use the websites.
Hackers
Although the term ‘hackers’ has been adopted by geeks of all kinds, the hackers we’re referring to are nothing more than glorified street taggers. Many people consider them Internet vandals. They can put blocks of text, sound or photos into websites and forums. They insert the text as an SQL injection and no program is completely hacker proof. Hackers like forums in particular because it is easier to work in environments that allow users to upload text. Hackers are particularly fond of Simple Machines Forums (SMF).
Danger for Websites
The biggest risk for websites that have been hacked is losing visitors and therefore their rankings in search engines. Visitors who stumble on a hacked site are understandably fearful of going back. Websites who have been hacked must find out how the hacker accessed their site and fix the code that was inserted. Sometimes the hackers are able to change the entire site by changing one of the templates. They can also put a meta direct into the website’s address that redirects users to the hacked page.
Danger for Users
Luckily, unlike spammers who are gathering email information for evil purposes, hackers generally like to tag and run. They enjoy the shock value of defacing a site, but most hacked sites are relatively easy to fix. In most cases, users who come upon a hacked website are in no danger from their visit. Often, if you check back, the website creators have fixed the problem in hours and the site will be up and running normally.
In your case, I went back to madphilosophers and it looks like they have cleaned up the mess and are functioning normally as a forum. It does look as if they are in the middle of a reorganization, but that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the hacker problem. I would have no fear going back to your forum and pursuing your interests. I hope this has alleviated your fears.
