World's largest and oldest broadcaster, BBC, recently came under attack when a Russian hacker took control of its server and tried to sell its access to other cybercriminals.
The hacker advertising the exploit and selling its access on a black market forum was spotted by US firm Hold Security but it is not clear if the hacker managed to bag any deal from fellow cybercriminals. BBC's security team responded to the issue on Saturday and managed to secure the server.
The "notorious Russian hacker" invaded the system through the file-transfer site ftp.bbc.co.uk.
The attack was first identified by Milwaukee-based Hold Security who said that the hacker used the pseudonyms "Hash" and "Rev0lver" for publicizing the vulnerability of the site. As a proof, the hacker also provided copies of file that supposedly could be accessed with someone with admin privileges.
"The only other information that I can offer is that the hacker was offering a screenshot proving that he had administrative access to the BBC server," said Alex Holden, chief information security officer at Hold Security. "It was solid technically convincing evidence."
BBC, however is not the first news agency to come under attack this year. Last January, New York Times reported that it was under attack for four continuous months by Chinese hackers who were looking for employees' passwords. Last month, news surfaced that Washington Post was also hacked.
Meanwhile, BBC is maintaining silence on the issue. "We do not comment on security issues," said a BBC spokesman.
