Spammers hack Firefox support site

A Firefox advocacy website called Spread Firefox has been brought down by hackers who attempted to take it over to send spam, it emerged today. 

The site had to close briefly while the attack was cleaned up. It is not known whether the attack was an attempt to place Trojan software on the site or to use the accounts of registered users as a spam directory.

"It appears that a part of Spread Firefox was hacked in an attempt to use it to send out spam," said Asa Dotzlerin on the site's blog. 

"It doesn't look like the attacker accessed any personal data on the site, but to be safe we're encouraging all our users to log in and change their passwords.

"If you have an account with Spread Firefox, you probably received an email about this with instructions for updating your password."

The site stores details of members' email and instant messaging accounts, along with street names and birthdays.

Spread Firefox raised more than $200,000 last December for a two-page ad for Firefox in The New York Times and has a claimed membership of about 100,000.

See also:

Firefox patch fixes 12 security flaws

Version 1.0.5 designed to be more stable  13 Jul 2005

Top websites shun Firefox users

Web developers rapped for IE only sites  24 Jun 2005

Forgotten flaw floors Firefox

Seven year-old bug emerges in popular browser  08 Jun 2005

Firefox toolbar blocks phishing sites

Software cuts down on scams by spotting fraudulent URLs  26 May 2005

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!