Thanks to a lack of security and a bad public image

It seems that someone in the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tech department forgot to set up proper security for their website. As of today, the entire website has been wiped clean. It started when some ne’erdowell hackers found a way to put a speed bump on the site with a link to a very slow SQL query posted on Reddit.

While this was funny enough as it totally clogged up the RIAA servers causing the site to come to a virtual halt, it’s been suggested that another (perhaps more advanced) hacker decided to take this a step further. Which could be an explanation as to why the RIAA site is currently completely devoid of content.

Some comments on Reddit suggest that this was an intentional move by the hackers. Others say the apparent wiping of the RIAA database was just a bonus effect of the original query. A few claim that they have been able to see the content today. So it could be that, by slowing the site down so much, it simply cannot display the content properly and locks up.

Either way, it’s further proof that many of these big corporations don’t know how the internet works and they can’t appreciate the need for a secure system. Or they are too cheap to hire programmers of the caliber needed to insure such security. For the sake of the RIAA, I wonder if they’ve backed up their data.

And in a funny sidenote, it seems that the RIAA has chosen to use a content management system based on the open-source PHP language and MySQL database running on a Linux system. I guess the cost of all those lawyers going after peer-to-peer users was too much for them to actually afford to buy a secure, licensed system.

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Comments on Reddit