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INDUSTRY NEWS


2 May 2008

Lazy programming 'leads to hacker attacks'


Poor programming practices by web developers have been blamed for the recent string of hacks on thousands of websites around the world.

Up to 500,000 websites are reported to have been targeted by Chinese hackers, who attempted to redirect visitors to servers containing malicious code using database query language SQL.

Speaking to Computer Weekly, Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at Scansafe, explained that the targeting was likely the result of poor coding practices.

Echoing this sentiment, Stephan Chenette, manager of Websense Security Labs, told he website that programmers falling victim to the hacks had failed to properly validate user input.

"Web developers should heed secure development practices because a fully patched host may still be susceptible to attack if code was not properly checked for vulnerabilities," he said.

Security researchers recently marked the 30th anniversary of the first spam mail. On May 1st 1978, an employ of the computer vendor Digital Equipment Company sent a message on Arpanet, an early forerunner of the internet, advertising the company’s latest computer systems.

© 2006 Adfero Ltd.

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