[ISN] Hack attack linked to annular eclipse

[InfoSec News]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/04/hacker_eclipse/

By John Leyden
4th October 2005 

Are hackers affected by lunar cycles? The question arises after we
were sent a screenshot [1] of the defacement of space.com yesterday
morning. The attack happened hours before an annular eclipse [2]
reached Europe.

Coincidence? We think not. There's a lot of talk about zombie bots (PC
infected by malware and under the control of hackers) but what of
werewolves? Admittedly the defacement of space.com made no mention of
lycanthropy but security vendors are always fond of talking about
"silver bullet solutions" to hacker threats. There's even been a
werewolf virus.

This might all sound a bit thin but if college profs can get financing
to do studies on gay cows then surely the links between malicious
hackers and shape shifting merit closer inspection. And while they're
at it the putative study might also want to consider why the major
virus outbreaks of the year (Nimda, Blaster, Zotob etc.) always hit in
August. We suspect virus writers getting bored during their summer
holidays from school or college might be behind this one. ®

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/04/space_hack.jpg
[2] http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/ASE2005/ASE2005tab/ASE2005-Tab14.html