The website Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest software vendor, has been hacked. The hacker has posted a “For Sale” message on the site, which is written in both French and English. Ironically, the company produces security systems software.
The hack is believed to be a DNS hijack, which is similar to the breach that Twitter succumbed to last year. TechCrunch was also recently hacked earlier this year.
UPDATE: While some of our commenters have pointed out that they can visit the site, the TechCrunch team still sees the TCS page as hacked.
That’s what we in the IT business like to call FAIL xD
Please verify the fact before putting up the news. I mean this is ridiculous! There is not even a print screen to show that it actually happened! BTW the website is up and running. If it was hacked it should have been down!
Where r u buddy ? TCS has been hacked, badly hacked. http://bit.ly/b0htzj
I checked the website(from India) within 15 minutes of the news being put up on TechCrunch and it was up and running. TCS.com was back in action as soon as they found the problem. DNS propagation takes time, and its not their fault.
The issue was with the DNS. Here is a screenshot http://www.binbert.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/www.tcs_.com-hacked.jpg . Read the update on http://www.binbert.com/blog/2010/02/www-tcs-com-hacked/
I think this guy(TCSer) is working for TCS ..He does n’t seem to know what is a DNS attack..
Well I think thats exactly what is the situation with you. TCS.com itself was not hacked . DNS propagation takes time. Read the comments below
I’m not geeky when it comes to tracing of caches, but there’s a probability that what are seeing now (running TCS) could might be just a cache of the actual disabled version of TCS. Provided if there was a real breach on their DNS.
One thing that I know about DNS hijack, is the mechanics of doing it, is ‘not that hard’ to accomplish should you do this from one site to the other. Although, that type of hack is easier to be remedied than those server-sided hacks. Albeit, until now, that TC hacked happened last time was still puzzling to me. It seems as though it’s not a simple DNS hijacking. (at least on my POV)
This was one of the hottest discussion on twitter today.
The official website tcs.com accessed from India looks all fine. Is this story true?
NO it’s not.. its down and looks like hacked.. he is selling the domain name.. WOW!
From India – TCS.com looks perfectly ok!
Check your internet connection dude..
Possibly depends on who your DNS provider is. I use Google’s dns service and am getting the hacked page.
Here too.
Hell, I thought it’s fucked up when one of my joomla sites have been hacked by some kids that try to exploit some gaps. But that’s a bit (only a bit) different
I’m using OpenDNS. I’m in India. I don’t see any problem with the site.
Seems like allot of high profile people are getting hacked lately.
I guess this is something we all better get used to and fast… just like identity theft.
P.S.
Still wondering what happened to TechCrunch hack
I’m not pretty good at French myself but I don’t think “please contact us” translates as “merci de nous contacter” amirite?
maybe from gTranslator
It does mean exactly that. Compare to “Thanks for not smoking”.
I don’t know why, but suddenly remembered Google recent ad
Its working. Nothing is hacked.
This is way less funny than when ValueJet was hacked. At least be creative.
should have said “outsource this”….LOL.
Ironically, the company produces security systems software. should be
Ironically, the company “also” produces security systems software.
Also the DNS entry is maintained by some other company isn’t?
it seems site is back on line now….
Looks like the site is back now?
Seems like every website’s being attacked these days…!
Looks like its back up again
from CA it is working fine. CA requests are directed to different server? still everyone are seeing the hacked page in East.
I checked the moment this was posted. But the site http://www.tcs.com is functioning well.
It’s up, may be their recovery system is very fast.
http://WWW.tcs.com seems ok
http://tcs.com isn’t
Its not yet up. still says it’s for sale!
TCS.com is NOT hacked. It’s Network Solutions (who provide DNS for them) is hacked.
LOL
It’s a fake news.
tcs.com is still showing the hacked page here in France at 6:30PM CET.
Given the fact that their stats button at the button opens in a French localized version (or is that just geolocalization kicking in for me?) and the fact that the English line says “domaine name” with an “e” on domain, it would appear that Tata has earned some native French-language hacking love.
The Tata Group (specifically Tata Steel) has suffered some mixed popularity in France related to steel mill purchases and closures. TCS has a French and Swiss presence but haven’t heard much about it either positively or negatively (in case this is somehow in retaliation for ticking off some Frenchies)
Baidu was also down for several hours last month from a similar attack.
Ahhh, Indian IT. Quality stuff!
Ridiculous and racist, what’s indian about it?
@Phil
What do you mean by that?
wall street – Ahhh, American finance. Quality stuff!
lmao! Used this exchange on my Times of India blog post:
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech-now/entry/tcs-hacked-not-really-but
Second that! High quality shit on wall streeet!
Hehe! Awesome Reply!
Also, there is a big difference in the way this happened and TechCrunch was hacked. Here, DNS was hijacked at the DNS provider’s side (if you are a techie, find out who provides DNS for TCS and you would know the name as well as country of the company) and pointed to an entirely different server. TCS is back in action as soon as they found the problem. DNS propagation takes time, and its not their fault.
In the case of TechCrunch, it’s application server was hacked. Yeah, we read the hacker’s note. Both the times.
Yes many Fortune 500 countries use production code written by these very companies Get a life.
Secondly, the post never even shows an actual screenshot of the webpage , it shows only an image and CLAIMS that the website was hacked without any substantial proof.
I don’t know what “Indian IT and its quality” is to do with this, when DNS Server is hacked. So when Google was hacked from china can we term it has “American IT, Top Quality” or when “Lockheed Martin”’s and the proud and laughing F35 program files was hacked . Moreover TCS is a SERVICES COMPANY not a company which makes SECURITY SOFTWARE. The Author of this post should try to understand about TCS’s profile.
Ridiculous and racist, what’s Indian about it?
If you want to be ridiculous…see how much time twitter took to recover and see how in fraction of minutes TCS site was up and running
Get out of old mind set…world is changing fast…
tcs was not hacked.. its perfect. and more over its not a security solutions company. its not ironical.
From what I see the site was never hacked…
Some clever DNS hack changed the server for http://www.tcs.com and directed the URL to a specially crafted page. For all we now right now the Tata server was never hacked, just the DNS server they use…
And right now from France the DNS hack is still working, it will probably stop as soon as the DNS servers my ISP use are refreshed.
Eric
still down for me, 11:30am 2/7/10
RoadRunner Cable, Los Angeles, CA
Its not the tcs.com that is being hacked rather DNS server that you are using,like google dns ..
I tried with opendns(208.67.222.222 or 208.67.222.220) few hrs back and site opened perfectly .But just now it seems opendns too is hacked.
Who cares, really.
They don’t control the nameservers…
This is a pointless post.
Now if the actual site was hacked then this would be news worthy!
Leeana Rao you really don’t understand how nameservers work do you?
If this was simply a dns issue you might be correct but their server was not compromised.
Btw the racist remarks are really lame as this shows you know zero about Indian culture. All people in the world come from the same DNA. The problem brewing in India is the competitive climate and job hoping. Regardless of India’s wild job hoping culture this issue was NS records. (you like my circular logic?) joking aside I very much dislike hate based on racism.
This explains all. Wasteful post be TechCrunch…slow news day?
Just confirmed http://twitpic.com/11xtzb
From India – TCS.com looks perfectl… there’s no such msg……