By Osagie Alonge
On Thursday, April 18, 2013, the official website of this newspaper, Nigerian Entertainment Today was compromised by internet hackers. The hackers had criminally gained access to the company’s hosting account and illegally took possession of our domain www.thenetng.com.
The illegal act which occurred in the early hours of Thursday was calculated, well planned and took precise timing; the cyberpunk (s) managed to hack into one of our Google Mail accounts, gaining access to our domain hosting account at internet domain registrar and web hosting company Godaddy. Before making the transfer, the hacker made sure all mails from Godaddy filtered to trash (just to make sure, if they sent any alerts to us, it won’t be seen in the inbox).
The hacker then transferred the domain thenetng.com out of NET’s Godaddy account (while Godaddy alerted NET, sending series of confirmation E-mails to NET’s Gmail, all correspondence filtered to trash) into another hosting company Onlinenic making it look like a legal transfer. The domain thenetng.com was then directed (using Static DNS Hosting, subdomain and domain hosting, Afraid.org) to multiple promo sites.
Few minutes after this occurred; the IT staff at NET reclaimed the Google mail account. Unfortunately, the transfer was too late to be reverted. Doing a WHOIS search, we discovered that the hacker(s) had also updated the domain’s profile to one Rocco Mancini.
The hacker using a Yahoo! E-mail account under the same name Rocco Mancini a few minutes later sent an E-mail to the hacked NET Gmail account stating he had gained possession of the domain by back-ordering it (obviously lying) and demanded a ransom of $1,200.
‘We back-ordered thenetng.com and we are the owner of this domain at this moment. If you want to buy it for reasonable price (only 1200 USD) reply to this email or contact me via Yahoo! messenger. This is a limited time offer’, the E-mail read, adding that we could transfer the money via online money transfer Liberty Reserve.’
Luckily, our servers and user data were completely unaffected as they were hosted on a separate server company. NET established contact with Mancini and informed him we would respond to his E-mail. NET’s editors then announced via Twitter, that our domain had been seized.
In less than 12 hours, the hacker reduced his ransom money from $1,2000 to $900. But management had reached a decision not to respond or negotiate. Not to pay any ransom to the criminal(s)
On Friday, April 19, 2013, NET made an official statement, following the tweets.
‘We are convinced this is a calculated attack by detractors to unsettle and distract us, knowing our third anniversary (April 26) is just around the corner, as well as our inaugural Nigerian Entertainment Conference holding next Friday’, the statement signed by our publisher Ayeni Adekunle reads in part.
It is the first time since we registered the domain in 2009 that such security breach would occur. And even though we considered our readers, advertisers and partners, our management took a firm decision not to engage with the criminals’, Ayeni said in the statement.
NET also announced the website had been temporarily moved to www.thenetng.net.
Hours after the statement was published, the hacker sent us another mail, reducing his ransom to $500.
Meanwhile, NET had reported to issue to domain hosting company Godaddy who investigated the matter. Via a telephone conversation, a customer care rep named Marcus O. confirmed the domain was transferred out of NET’s account. He however said Godaddy won’t be able to reverse the transfer because it was (apparently) authorized by NET and advised the matter be specially reported to a higher authority at Godaddy. We are still in communication with Godaddy.
In the evening of Saturday, April 21, the hacker sent another E-mail, dropping his ransom to $200.
‘just pay 200 $ and its yours…
…fund your LR account just for 200 $ and pm me in yahoo messenger to trade it in a minute…200 $… think about it…’
As at today Monday, April 22, 2013, the domain has not been reacquired but we continue to work with our registrar, our in –house IT team, and consultants to legitimately reclaim our domain. We are aware this may take some time, but it is a sacrifice we are willing to make.
We have made moves to report to the appropriate Nigerian and international authorities, and are seeking the board’s approval to make the hackers’ full emails public.
Nigerian Entertainment Today went live with a 24-hour website on November 23, 2009, while our print edition hit the newstands on April 26 2010.
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