Lakeview Restaurant's Web Site Hacked
A popular restaurant's site has been defaced by someone urging "death to Israel"
Update: Socca's web site has been restored to its original condition.
Lakeview's Socca is known for serving tasty mushroom rigatoni with whipped goat cheese, cooking up an intimidating (but tasty) one-pound meatball with spaghetti, and...promoting violence against Israel?
With rocket launchers?
If you browsed to soccachicago.com on Sunday morning, that's what you found. The popular Lakeview restaurant's web site was hacked by a vandal promoting "Death to Israel."
Instead of photographs of French and Italian cuisine, would be diners were greeted by photos of masked men wearing fatigues and brandishing RPGs.
"We're trying to figure out how this could have happened," said partner Christopher Mcgauran. "Why us? We're a small local establishment."
The site was restored to normal by Monday morning.
Like many restaurateurs, Mcgauran outsources his web site's upkeep. He said he didn't realize the site was defaced until he began receiving phone calls from concerned customers.
Network Solutions, Socca's domain registrar, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
A cursory web search reveals the alleged hacker has apparently compromised a few additional sites and applications in the past few days.
"My domain was 'haCKed by CWkomando' who seems to have a beef with Israel," reads a tweet from San Francisco resident Raymond Larrett. "Network Solutions say they are getting many such calls."
Several other twitter users mentioned a similar problem; Network Solutions' twitter account has responded to several.
"We're investigating this thoroughly!" @netsolcares wrote in one tweet. "So sorry for the trouble!"
Mcgauran says the whole experience feels completely random. In five years, he says, he's never had a problem. Socca boasts a four-star rating on Yelp and several glowing reviews.
"There's no reason for this. Nothing that I can possibly imagine."
Posted Sunday, Jan 17, 2010 - 7:38 PM CST
