The 11 funniest hacker attacks

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Black hat cyber-terrorists use their 1337 skills for all kinds of nefarious purposes, but sometimes they just want a good laugh. The prankster mentality has been a part of hacker culture since the beginning, and in this feature we’ll run down the eleven most hilarious times computers were compromised for lulz.

AC/DC Power Plant

When a hacker gains access to a computer system, they can make it do all sorts of things. But when a worm got into the control system of several nuclear research facilities in Iran, it decided to rock out. The malware, which was first reported in 2012, did the expected things like shutting down monitoring stations and other hardware, but it also had a unique signature. At random times during the night, it would activate workstations and make them play “Thunderstruck” by legendary hard rock band AC/DC at maximum volume.

Operation Cupcake

Not all hacks are perpetrated by teens in dark basements. Some come direct from the halls of power in the government and military. Most of those aren’t particularly funny, but every once in a while a joke sneaks through.

Case in point: “Operation Cupcake,” a 2011 hack by British intelligence service MI6 that took over a radical Muslim preacher’s online magazine and replaced an article on how to manufacture pipe bombs in your kitchen with a collection of cupcake recipes borrowed from the Ellen DeGeneres show. Really, wouldn’t it be better if we had suicide cupcakers instead of bombers, though?

News 14 Carolina

Many of the best computer hacks reach out into the real world as well, as this illustrates. In 2004, a group of pranksters realized that North Carolina’s News 14 took its on-screen snow day school closures from an online message board automatically. They immediately started flooding it with juvenile messages like “Cecil’s Cockring Emporium – Back Up Tomorrow” and “All Your Base Are Belong To Us.” This continued for almost three hours before the station caught on.

Ika-Tako Virus

Typically we don’t consider viruses to be all that funny, and if one of our computers got hit with the Japanese-made Ika-Tako virus there probably wouldn’t be much laughter. From the outside, though, it’s just absurd enough to be hilarious.

The malware, which was first observed in 2010, disguises itself as an audio file. When it’s run, it sweeps through the hard drive, deleting files and replacing them with cute cartoon images of octopuses, squid and sea urchins. The original files are then uploaded to the virus creator’s remote server. Masato Nakatsuiji, the man responsible, was arrested and given two years and six months in prison for his efforts.

Lenovo Website Hack

The last few years have seen a new breed of hackers come to the forefront, motivated by the sheer desire to cause as much chaos as possible. One of the best-known groups is Lizard Squad, who spent 2014 taking down dozens of targets with immature and often ridiculous methods. Perhaps their funniest hack was aimed at PC manufacturer Lenovo.

In February of 2015, the Squad took down the firm’s site and replaced it with what appeared to be a webcam feed of bored-looking teenagers soundtracked to a tune from “High School Musical.” Who were these kids? The world may never know, but the sheer absurdity of the hack earns it a spot on the list.

Lenovo Website Hack

As more and more devices are networked together, it makes it easier for hackers to manipulate them. Case in point: when some ambitious pranksters figured out how to get into electronic road signs in San Francisco in 2014, they re-programmed the messages to read “GODZILLA ATTACK – TURN BACK!” Thankfully, no accidents were caused by drivers fleeing giant radioactive lizards, but it still caused a lot of confusion.

Burger King Twitter

Social media is a double-edged sword for today’s brands. It’s a necessary part of doing business, but it can also go wrong in an instant. Burger King found this out the hard way when somebody took over their Twitter account in 2013.

The hacker posted a message claiming the fast food franchise had been sold to long-time rival McDonalds and changed their display name and icon to the Golden Arches. They didn’t keep up the ruse for long, as the account was suspended after about an hour, but it was amazing to watch such a big corporation get owned.

CosbyCoin

The rise of Bitcoin has opened the doors for all kinds of shenanigans – it turns out that an anonymous, untraceable currency can be used for evil pretty easily. But the funniest Bitcoin-related hack that we’ve heard of happened in 2011 when the forums at bitcointalk.org, one of the most prominent and visible discussion areas for the currency, were taken over by an anonymous hacker and changed into “Cosbycoin.” Grinning images of Bill Cosby were plastered all over, along with links to a whole website that had been set up to pitch the pudding-flavored cryptocurrency.

Britney Spears Twitter

Typically when pranksters hijack a celebrity’s social media account, they use it to either grab personal information from DMs or promote their own causes. The as-yet-unidentified jokester who seized control of Britney Spears’ account in 2009 had other plans, however.

When he took over, he decided to go full Illuminati on the singer, filling her page background with eye-bearing pyramids and Tweeting about the star “giving herself to Lucifer every day” and hoping for the arrival of the New World Order. The bizarre message still

stands as one of the funniest celeb hacks.

Max Headroom

The whole gimmick behind Max Headroom – made famous as a Pepsi pitchman in 1985 – was that he was a rogue artificial intelligence that could take over displays with ease. So in 1987, it was only natural that he became the face of one of the most memorable TV hacks of all time.

One November night, a man in a Headroom mask cut into the broadcast signal of two Chicago stations, airing a demented video in which he ranted and then dropped trou and was paddled on the butt with a flyswatter. The incursion only lasted 90 minutes, but that was long enough to become hacker legend.

1909 Telegraph Hack

Let’s go way back in time for this one, to show that even before there were computers there were hackers. In 1909, a group of some of London’s finest men gathered in the Royal Institution’s lecture hall to witness the first-ever display of long-distance wireless telegraph designed by Guglielmo Marconi. But when the machine was fired up, it started tapping out an insulting poem about Marconi “diddling the public.” The reason? The system had been hacked by magician and prankster Nevil Maskelyne, who figured out Marconi’s method and devised a workaround to insult his rival.

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