Hackers, calling themselves "Ulzr1z", have defaced MIT's course websites in the lead up to the anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death, who committed suicide after being arrested by MIT police.
The attack affected MIT's Media Lab faculty, which hosts a number of course websites under its domain. The hackers gained access to the WordPress admin panel, which controls all the websites. The group posted a screenshot in a tweet to prove they had access.
The hack was done as a tribute to Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on 11 January after being arrested by MIT police for hacking into its systems. He co-authored the RSS 1.0 specification when he was just a teenager and was one of the co-owners of Reddit, a popular user-generated news links site.
When the hackers gained access to the admin panel, they edited the homepage of each one of the 15 course websites replacing it with the text below, which has since been removed.
Hacked by Ulzr1z
./Hacked by Ulzr1z
Follow me @ulzr1z#OpAaronSwartz
Hacked !
The hacking of MIT's websites has turned into an annual event with the university's website previously hacked in 2013 and in 2014, each time was said to be a tribute to Aaron Swartz.
Source: @Ulzr1z (Twitter)
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