Hackers carried out a defacement on the website of the Creative Europe Office of the Ministry of Culture and Sports (Directorate of International Relations and European Union/Department of European Union), https://creative-europe.culture.gr/.
According to information, today, Friday, October 8, the hacker or hackers with the nickname nofawkX-al breached the official website of the Creative Europe Office of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, leaving a message aimed at highlighting the corruption of state institutions that lead to wars and poverty.
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They replaced the website page with the following screenshot:
The hackers chose to leave their own message to the website's administrators. Specifically, they state:
"Nothing is impossible if we just believe"
This [message] concerns all governments and states.
Corrupt governments lead to global problems. The difference is a cause and effect of poverty, worldwide. It appears at all levels of society from local and national governments, small and medium-sized enterprises, the military, etc. Corruption affects the poor the most, although all the structures of society are altered such as political development, democracy, economic growth, the environment, human health, etc. Around the world, the rate of corruption in state infrastructure is enormous, resulting in wars, hostility and more poverty. Although it is difficult to calculate or compare, the influence of corruption on poverty is enormous. Every country is plagued by corruption. To stop poverty and war we must stop corruption.” [Free Translation]
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The malicious users also made sure to leave contact information that the website administrators and, logically, anyone else who wishes can contact them.
According to exclusive information, the hackers come from a Balkan country.
It is worth noting that the website is hosted on an Apache web server, which leads to the conclusion that the hackers likely exploited the recently published Zero-day vulnerability in the web server that allows remote code execution.
The path traversal vulnerability in Apache's HTTP server has been actively exploited by hackers before the Apache project was notified of the flaw in September or had a chance to fix it.
But the recent disclosure of the Apache path traversal webserver flaw, identified as CVE-2021-41773, was followed by PoC exploits that quickly appeared online.
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But while the PoC exploits were being developed and collaborated on, another discovery came to light. Attackers can abuse Apache servers running version 2.4.49 not only to read arbitrary files but also to execute arbitrary code on the servers.
Learn more: Apache: Zero-day vulnerability allows remote code execution
The website managers of the Creative Europe Office of the Ministry of Culture and Sports (Directorate of International Relations and European Union/European Union Department) need to examine this specific scenario and take this specific security gap very seriously.
As of the time of writing, the website remains under the control of hackers without any action having been taken to restore the website and web server.
Creative Europe Office of the Ministry of Culture and Sports (Directorate of International Relations and European Union/European Union Department)
The Creative Europe Office of the Ministry of Culture and Sports provides funding opportunities for organizations in the cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors, within the framework of the European Commission's Creative Europe Program.
Also, on their website you will find information about the European Commission Prizes in the fields of literature, contemporary architecture, cultural heritage, music and cinema, as well as about the special funded actions, which include the European Capitals of Culture and the European Heritage Label.
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What is defacement?
A defacement attack is a type of website vandalism where hackers infiltrate the website and replace its content with their own messages. It is usually used to cover up something larger, which is happening in the background, while the messages can carry a political or religious message, inappropriate content, or a notification that the website has been hacked.
Content alteration is usually achieved using SQL injection and logging into the administrator's account. Common targets of defacement attacks are government figures and websites, or religious websites, while the attacks are most often committed by activists (hacktivists), who prefer large pages with many viewers.
