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Lord Howe Island is one of Australia’s most popular island holiday destinations, just off the coast of Port Macquarie in New South Wales (NSW). Recently, its tourist website was attacked by cybercriminals.
Travel and tourism websites are no longer safe from witty cybercriminals. According to Ankit Raj Sharma of Nomad Lawyer, “tourism and travel companies have increasingly come under the crosshairs of hackers and cybercriminals who seek to exploit data security vulnerabilities. Data breaches have become commonplace in the travel and tourism industry these days.”
Sharma added that British Airways recently detected a significant cybersecurity breach. Hackers could get personal information and financial data from more than 380,000 cards. Hackers exploit security vulnerabilities that travel and tourism companies often underestimate.
Recently, another tourism website was hacked. Individuals who visited the Lord Howe Island website may have recently been treated with an unpleasant surprise. Multiple reports were received on 23 January that many articles on the website referred to dating apps and sex acts. Some even contained links to pornographic websites.
According to News.com reporter Ally Foster, “When opening the page’s ‘menu’ section, a headline appeared: ‘26-year-old man dating 35-year-old woman’. Under that heading were two links, one referencing online dating and the other much more X-rated, referring to a dating app for a specific sex act. Clicking on the links brought up articles, with one titled ‘How to date a younger woman without being the worst’.”
Foster reported that the articles had been removed from the website. However, several individuals had already taken screenshots of the website and have shared them as memes on social media apps.
A spokesperson for the website reported in an interview that IT specialists were already able to neutralise the attack and are continuously monitoring the website. Unfortunately, there were no reports on identifying the threat actors.
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