Central Okanagan

UPDATE 3 P.M.

Photo: Contributed - screenshot of crimestoppers.net

The Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers Society webpage was hacked on March 20, 2013. This is one of the images displayed from the hacker who calls himself Moukit.

Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers Society  president David Demeyere would like to reassure the public that the website, www.crimestoppers.net , that was hacked earlier this morning is primarily a posting site for media features including wanted criminals and unsolved crimes.   The integrity of any and all tips submitted is completely safe, as those are on a secure database that is not connected to this website in any way.  Our tip database is secure and encrypted and was in no way compromised by this act.

Crime Stoppers has been informed by their web provider that the file system of the site was infiltrated via a file that was uploaded to the website from an attacker originating in Morocco. The attacker used the uploaded file as a staging ground to delete the files located on the hosting account, and upload his or her own homepage boasting the success of the attack. Initial investigation into the attacker's history of exploits suggests that the defacing of crimestoppers.net was random and proves that anyone with public information on a website can become a victim.

The site has been restored and we are currently investigating how the exploit initially occurred and what steps can be taken to prevent it from happening again. 

The Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers Society’s website has been hacked by a individual or group from Morocco.

The problem was discovered Wednesday morning and screen grabs of their main page show a black background with the groups insignia and a short message from one of the hackers.

“I Do Not Hack To Prove That we are Professional , But we put a mark in your history,” says part of the message.

Crime Stoppers was not aware of the problem until contacted by Castanet.net, but say they recently experienced the same type of situation. They have since notified their Internet service provider of the breach.

An Internet search of the hacker -- who left his name along with the message --  includes a website that appears to track the number of other websites this individual has defaced.