'Demetriou is Eddie's bitch': AFL site defaced with nasty comment
The AFL's official website suffered an embarrassing security lapse today after the home page was defaced with a comment about league chief executive Andrew Demetriou and Collingwood president Eddie McGuire.
Website readers raced to social media to discuss and expose the lapse after the afl.com.au content management system "inadvertently" briefly allowed anyone administrator access.
Megan Clement, a journalist with theconversation.edu.au, tweeted an image at 1:26pm with the site showing the following message: "Demetriou is Eddie's bitch". Another claimed she saw the comment "Magpies suck" on the Collingwood Football Club page.
AFL corporate affairs spokesman James Tonkin confirmed the incident and said the league was working with Telstra to investigate the breach.
‘‘It’s a regrettable breach,’’ Tonkin said.
‘‘Today a small section of the homepage at afl.com.au was inadvertently made available to the public for just over 15 minutes as a result of human error,’’ the league said in a statement.
‘‘The page was disabled as soon as we were aware of it and fully restored with full security a short time later.’’
The AFL and Telstra stressed that no personal data had been compromised.
‘‘This was an opportunistic breach by a member of the public rather than the result of hacking activity. Internal procedures are being reviewed to ensure similar breaches do not occur,’’ the AFL said.
The AFL said the site’s content management system had been in operation for more than five years and this was the first time an incident like this had occurred.
‘‘The AFL and Telstra are currently developing an entirely new content management system and website that will ensure the highest levels of security and content integrity.’’
Earlier, the AFL said to followers of its official Twitter account that it was "having some issues" with its site when users said it was not working and claimed it had been hacked.
Digital product strategy manager at AFL Media, Nic Smythe, tweeted that the home page was "open" for about 15 minutes "due to human error". "We quickly disabled & restored. No personal/financial info compromised."
