Eurosport Web page hit by hackers

PARIS--Top pan-European satellite and cable TV network Eurosport said its main Web site was also targeted during last week's wave of Internet hacking, but officials here are unsure if the attack was linked to those that temporarily shut down top sites including Amazon.com,Yahoo!, eBay and CNN. Hackers broke into Eurosport's English-language portal site(www.eurosport.com) Feb. 11 at about 10:30 a.m. Central European Time. The intruders pasted a black-and-white sheet over the site with the following message: "This site has been hacked by the BlackHand of Yugoslavia.'' The attack closed the home page for about two and a half hours, shutting down banner advertising for marketers including razor manufacturer Gillette Co. and car makers Kia and Peugeot as well as in-house e-commerce applications run by EuroSport. Pages behind the portal and corresponding advertising were not affected by the attack, nor was EuroSport's popular German-language site (www.eurosport.de). While the BlackHand of Yugoslavia claimed credit for the attacks against Yahoo!, CNN and other sites during its intrusion at the EuroSport site, company officials are unable to confirm whether the incidents are linked. "At this point, our main concern is improving security to ensure that we are more prepared for the next time someone tries this,'' a EuroSport source says. EuroSport, which operates Europe's top regional satellite TV channel, will not let the Internet hacking slow down expansion of Web site operations. The company will unveil six new sites by year-end, allowing it to provide sports-related content in seven languages. At present, the main site averages an estimated 1.3 million individualvisitors per-month and 10 million pages viewed. Copyright February 2000, Crain Communications Inc.

Eurosport Web page hit by hackers

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