Microsoft’s Website to Fight Government Surveillance Just Got Hacked

ByAdarsh Verma June 18, 2015June 22, 2015 Updated onJune 22, 2015

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Microsoft’s dedicated website to fight the US government surveillance and privacy breachings has just been hacked. While Microsoft is aiming to bring improved security features to the users in Windows 10, it looks like the company forgot to secure its own systems.

The website named Digital Constitution was launched in 2013 by the Redmond just after NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden started releasing the secret documents regarding the surveillance programs of US government. With this website, Microsoft tried to express its views on the ongoing situation and told its users about the steps taken by it to protect their privacy interests.

The Digital Constitution website of Microsoft appears to be running on an older version of WordPress and was displaying casino-related webpages. It is running WordPress 4.0.5 version while the latest WordPress version is 4.2.2.

Earlier in the day, the website displayed weird content in the top bar that looked like an online casino advertisement. Similar unusual content was spread all over the other parts of website. ZDNet writes that the website was modified at about 9:15 ET on Wednesday. It’s not clear which group or individual is responsible for the attack as nobody has come forward to take responsibility.

Within an hour of the hacking attack, the mischievous content has been removed while some of the pages remain defaced.

ZDNet has reached out to Microsoft but they didn’t hear back from the tech giant. We’ll keep you updated on the story.

Did this attack on Microsoft’s anti-surveillance website surprise you? Tell us in comments.

Adarsh Verma

Fossbytes co-founder and an aspiring entrepreneur who keeps a close eye on open source, tech giants, and security.
Get in touch with him by sending an email — [email protected]