[Infowarrior] - Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer

[Richard Forno]

Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer
By Kevin Poulsen Email 03.28.08 | 8:00 PM
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/03/epilepsy

Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last
weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger
migraine headaches and seizures in some users.

The nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation, which runs the forum, briefly closed the
site Sunday to purge the offending messages and to boost security.

"We are seeing people affected," says Ken Lowenberg, senior director of web
and print publishing at the Epilepsy Foundation. "It's fortunately only a
handful. It's possible that people are just not reporting yet -- people
affected by it may not be coming back to the forum so fast."

The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on
the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post
hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.

The attackers turned to a more effective tactic on Sunday, injecting
JavaScript into some posts that redirected users' browsers to a page with a
more complex image designed to trigger seizures in both photosensitive and
pattern-sensitive epileptics.

RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old woman who suffers from pattern-sensitive
epilepsy, says she clicked on a forum post with a legitimate-sounding title
on Sunday. Her browser window resized to fill her screen, which was then
taken over by a pattern of squares rapidly flashing in different colors.

Fultz says she "locked up."

"I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts," says Fultz, an IT worker in
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. "I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn't
move and couldn't speak."

After about 10 seconds, Fultz's 11-year-old son came over and drew her gaze
away from the computer, then killed the browser process, she says.

"Everyone who logged on, it affected to some extent, whether by causing
headaches or seizures," says Browen Mead, a 24-year-old epilepsy patient in
Maine who says she suffered a daylong migraine after examining several of
the offending posts. She'd lingered too long on the pages trying to
determine who was responsible.

Circumstantial evidence suggests the attack was the work of members of
Anonymous, an informal collective of griefers best known for their recent
war on the Church of Scientology. The first flurry of posts on the epilepsy
forum referenced the site EBaumsWorld, which is much hated by Anonymous. And
forum members claim they found a message board thread -- since deleted --
planning the attack at 7chan.org, a group stronghold.

Fultz says the attack spawned an uncommonly bad seizure. "It was a spike of
pain in my head," she says. "And the lockup, that only happens with really
bad ones. I don't think I've had a seizure like that in about a year."

But she's satisfied with the Epilepsy Foundation's relatively fast response
to the attack, about 12 hours after it began on Easter weekend. "We all
really appreciate them for giving us this forum and giving us this place to
find each other," she says.

Epilepsy affects an estimated 50 million people worldwide, about 3 percent
of whom are photosensitive, meaning flashing lights and colors can trigger
seizures.