By, Robyn Rosen
1 min read
ByRobyn Rosen, Robyn Rosen
A group of websites run by a Sussex businessman have been hacked into by anti-Israel protesters.
Meynell Walter, the founder of the Meynell Games Group, which provides training and conferences to professionals who run children’s play groups, discovered seven of his websites had been hacked into last weekend.
A message appeared on the Meynell Games website in broken English and Turkish, which compared Jews to “vampires” while displaying an image of a burning Israeli flag.
Mr Walter, who ran Barkingside and Kenton’s Jewish youth clubs during the 1980s, said: “I was really annoyed when I saw it. I don’t know if it’s a personal attack. This is not the time we want something like this to happen as we have a big conference next month.
“We emailed everyone on our database to tell them.”
The message read: “Hacked by CWMehmed”.
The layout and language used in the message is almost identical to that used in a message posted on the JC website when it was hacked into last year.
An IT expert has said the message appears to follow a template used by a Turkish hacking group, Cyber Warriors.
Both CWMehmed and CWDarbe, which claimed the JC hack, are members of the group.
The JC was among dozens of other Jewish and Israeli websites listed on a hacking forum last year to be targeted with the same political message as the most recent attack.
Mr Walter, who is now based in Eastbourne, contacted the police about the attack.
Mark Gardner, from the Community Security Trust, said: “It is disturbing to see computers being hacked into in this way, with anti-Israel and antisemitic hate being combined.
“We urge anybody suffering such an attack to contact police and also to inform CST.”
A spokesman for 1&1, the websites’ service provider, said: “1&1’s security experts blocked the dangerous data sets and revoked the hackers access rights. So it is not longer possible for them to misuse Mr Walter’s web space.
“Mr Walter himself received an analysis of the attack. We suggested to him to check whether other malicious content was uploaded onto his web space and to delete all unknown, suspicious files immediately.
“We will assist and help with any specific problem, but the security of the software customer’s install is their sole responsibility as we are not allowed to access our customers’ data without their consent or a legal order.”
A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: "Sussex Police will thoroughly investigate all reports of malicious communication.
"An investigation is ongoing into allegations of antisemitic comments having been left on a website. Officers have been in contact with the victim and an appointment has been made to take a full statement and obtain evidence of the screen-shots of the website."