Keeping your internet property safe from hackers is hard enough on its own. But as WikiLeaks was reminded this week, one hacker technique can take over your entire website without even touching it directly. Instead, it takes advantage of the plumbing of the internet to siphon away your website's visitors, and even other data like incoming emails, before they ever reach your network
On Thursday morning, visitors to WikiLeaks.org saw not the site's usual collection of leaked secrets, but a taunting message from a mischievous group of hackers known as OurMine. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange explained on Twitter that the website was hacked via its DNS, or Domain Name System, apparently using a perennial technique known as DNS hijacking. As WikiLeaks took care to note, that meant that its servers weren't penetrated in the attack. Instead, OurMine had exploited a more fundamental layer of the internet itself, to reroute WikiLeaks visitors to a destination of the hackers' choosing.