TechCrunch Hacked

Tech site TechCrunch as been subject to a hacking that has taken its main content completely offline.

As at 10:20pm PDT Monday (Jan 25) TechCrunch was offline with a message that simply stated “hi” on its main page (see image above.)

The hacking seems to have affected the main TechCrunch.com domain only, with subdomains still online.

Keith Dsouza on Twitter noted that the hack appeared to be server based, and not a DNS based hack.

The new hacking comes as some have recently reported security issues with Rackspace, the host of TechCrunch, Mashable, and range of other sites, including The Inquisitr.

Update: as at 10:37 PST (5:37pm AEDT) TechCrunch remains offline. A review of the HTML code for the page shows no hidden message: the only line in the code states “Hi.”

Update 2: as at 10:40pm PST (5:40pm AEDT) TechCrunch is back up.

Update 3: strangely after the site reappearing, there’s now a “we’ll be back shortly” message (time: 11:15pm PST to 11:25pm PST.)

Update 4: 11:33pm PST, TechCrunch back up again, although they’re still not saying anything about the hack.

Update 5: 11:43pm PST: the we’ll be back soon message is back.

Update 6: midnight PST TechCrunch is still down with the “we’ll be back soon message.” You can only presume they’ve kept it offline until they sort through the risk aspect.

Update 7: TechCrunch is still down as at 12:55am PST (07:56pm AEDT.) The message though has changed to “Earlier tonight techcrunch.com was compromised by a security exploit. We’re working to identify the exploit and will bring the site back online shortly.”

Update 8: As at 1:25am PST (Jan 26) TechCrunch is STILL offline with the same message as before.

Update 9: 01:45 PST (8:45pm AEDT) still down.

Update 10: 01:50 PDT TC back up