Hacker Vandalizes Microsoft Site

A Microsoft France Web site defaced Sunday was not hacked through a software vulnerability, a company said Monday, but was breached because of a mis-configured server.

The Microsoft site -- experts.microsoft.fr -- was defaced with messages including "HACK!" and "Your System OwNed By Turkish Hackers!" As of late Monday, the site was still unavailable.

Although the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center tentatively tied the defacement to rumors of a zero-day exploit against Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 server software, a company spokesperson said different.

"Microsoft's initial investigation points to a mis-configuration of a web server at a third party hosting facility as the most likely cause of the compromise," he said in an e-mail to TechWeb.

The spokesperson also said that when the company had more information, it would be posted to the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog.According to the attack and defacement database maintained by Zone-H, the Microsoft France hack was done by an individual or group identified as "TitHacK," who/which has been credited with nearly 1,600 site defacements, most of them on Windows-based servers.