Google Palestine (Google.ps) hacked by Pro Palestine hackers Cold z3ro, HackTeach for Showing Palestine as Israel on Google Maps.
“Uncle Google we say hi from Palestine to remember you that the country in Google Map not called Israel. It’s called Palestine,” the hackers wrote on the defacement page.
It merit mentioning here that Palestine google domain defaced with DNS poisoning attack. The hackers managed to hack into Palestine (.ps) Domain Registrar website and changed the authoritative DNS records of the domain, to point the domain name to their own web server with a deface page hosted on it.
It’s not clear how this attack was carried out, but it may have involved compromising the system operated by the Palestinian National Internet Naming Authority (PNINA).
Deface Message:
“No News Is a Good News
Cold z3ro - Haml3t - Sas - Dr@guncle google we say hi from palestine to remember you that the country in google map not called israel. its called Palestine
# Question : what would happens if we changed the country title of Isreal to Palestine in google maps !!! it would be revolution ..
So Listen to rihanna and be cool
What is DNS poisoning?
DNS is the system that converts website names into an IP address of the server hosting the website. A DNS poisoning attack tampers the valid list with fake records causing domain names to resolve to incorrect IP addresses.
Why deface one website, when you can just hack the server that holds the IP address to the victim’s site? So, if you can hack the Domain Name System registrar that holds the records for an entire country, you can change any of the servers that you like to point to any website that you want.
These attacks can be much worse, if the hacktivists are a more malicious group. Like Nation State hackers, for example, who want to infect groups of systems from a target nation. Or gather pertinent credentials from users who think they are on a legitimate website, and not a spoofed one reached via Domain Name System manipulation. Imagine, how many accounts can be compromised if the websites are redirected to a Phishing page, instead of a defaced page.
At the time of reporting, Domain Registrar fix the DNS server records of the domain and are pointed back to original servers.