If you checked out the website for Lord Howe Island this morning in search of details on the idyllic holiday destination, you most definitely got more than you bargained for.
Lord Howe Island is located off the NSW coast, about 600km east of Port Macquarie, and is a hugely popular tourist destination boasting natural surroundings listed as World Heritage sites.
The island is so small that it only welcomes 400 visitors at any one time and the few who stay on the island have the opportunity to enjoy day hikes, snorkel at the world’s southernmost coral reef and walk along pristine beaches.
The website usually showcases the island paradise, but instead was littered with X-rated content on Monday morning. Information on how to have casual sex, tips for using dating app Tinder and links to pornographic websites appeared, with hackers responsible for the unsolicited content.
Images started to circulate online, with many people confused as to why the website was sharing this type of content.
Website staff were notified quickly of the issue and their developer was able to promptly fix the issue, minimising the number of people who saw the content.
It is also believed the crude content was only visible on mobile devices and through certain search pathways onto the website, further limiting the impact of the cyber attack.
It is still unclear who was responsible and why the website was targeted.
Trina Shepherd, Executive Officer of Lord Howe Island Tourism, spoke to Yahoo News Australia and expressed her confusion over the incident as the website undergoes “monthly updates” to prevent hacks like this from happening.
Ms Shepherd continued by assuring no customer information was obtained.
“Our site does not store any personal data of any kind so there was no risk of data leakage, so the hackers clearly were unsuccessful.”
The website has now been restored and is working as normal.
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