TechCrunch hacked for 2nd time in 24 hours

Security experts are warning webmasters to be on their guard, after popular technology blog TechCrunch was hacked for the second time in 24 hours. Users were greeted this time with a four-letter tirade against the site's founder, Michael Arrington.

The first hack happened at around 6am GMT yesterday morning, when visitors saw a blank page with a brief message and a link to a site containing links to "adult and pirated material", according to Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.

Later that morning the site posted a brief story about the hack. "At this point we are still gathering information on how the site was compromised, and will update this post with additional information," it said.

However, Cluley said in a blog post that the site was compromised again within 24 hours, and that the hackers left another message.

"So Arrington, how much did all the media coverage yesterday brought you in trough the welcome.html ad you forced people to? What a f***ing retarded move was that you t***. You should be thanking me and sucking on my f***ing b***sack for not deleting everyone on the box and publishing the mysql, if that's what you want O.K, I can do that," the message read.

According to Cluley, the message also included a link to a web site "hosting links to hardcore file-sharing torrents".

"This hack is a salutary warning to all web site owners that everyone has to be on their guard against hacking, whether your site is big or small," he said.

"At the time of writing, the site has been restored to normal operation, but you can't help but conclude that someone has a personal vendetta against the site."

TechCrunch may have been targeted specifically to coincide with the breaking news story of the Apple tablet launch, from which the site would have been expecting to generate large volumes of traffic, Cluley added.

TechCrunch has yet to elaborate on how the hackers managed to deface its site.