'Anonymous' pwns Digital Camera Mag website

'This forum is now 4chan's bitch'

Updated The website of Digital Camera Magazine was taken offline on Wednesday morning following an attack by denizens of 4chan.

Malefactors subverted the DC forum admin to send an abusive message. Members of the 4chan image board have been responsible for formulating and popularising internet memes such as lolcats and rickrolling. The site was also the breeding ground for the Anonymous collective, whose Project Chanology campaign has fought a year-long campaign against Scientology.

The abusive message was posted in the DC Magazine on Tuesday night using the Anonymous moniker, but there's nothing outside that to connect the attack to the Anonymous collective, which is best known for (but not restricted to) a high-profile campaign against Scientology. The motives behind the assault, whoever carried it out, remain unclear.

The offending post, apparently made through a compromised admin account, claimed the site had been pwned by a hacker affiliated with 4chan.

Your retarded administrators don't understand that repairing damage is meaningless unless you first fix the problem. This forum is now 4chan's bitch, and we shall do with it as we please. Since you administrators are completely incompetent we have decided to ban them, as well as change their passwords; we're sure you won't mind. We went easy on you this first time, prepare for the worst.

-Anonymous

A spokesman for Future Publishing confirmed there had been a security breach, which it is investigating.

The site (www.dcmag.co.uk) was taken offline by Future Publishing in response to the attacks. Other Future Publishing websites remain working as normal.

The 4chan image board, always at the cutting edge of controversy, has been linked to a string of internet pranks over recent months. Most famously, a 4chan user hacked the webmail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin back in September. A subsequent police investigation led to hacking charges against David Kernell, son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell.

Earlier this month pranksters from 4chan hacked into a live Macworld feed to post false rumours that Steve Jobs had died. ®

Update The DC Mag website is now reachable but is yet to be restored to anything useable. Surfers attempting to reach the site at the time of writing on Thursday afternoon get the following one line message: "We apologise that our site is currently unavailable. We aim to restore normal service as soon as possible", together with a phone number for urgent enquiries.