Online fishing store Angling Direct hacked with a redirect to porn website

One of the UK’s biggest online fishing shops has been hacked, with its website redirecting users to the adult website Pornhub.

Angling Direct sells fishing gear online and via its stores. It said it was hit by the attack late on Friday. Alongside the website redirect, its Twitter account has been compromised and also reference to the porn site and contact details for the attacker.

Given it is now late Monday night here in the UK and we still have the redirect in place and the Twitter message visible days after the attack, it makes you wonder why they have not restored the site. It makes you think that the hacker must have full control of the website and Twitter account as they are unable to access it to revert any changes.

It is too soon to determine whether shoppers’ personal details had been compromised, and the company is stressing that it does not hold any customer financial data on its website.

The following shows an image of the hacked Twitter account and some of the posts that have been made – as of 8-11-2021 PM these tweets are still visible and have not been deleted.

In a statement the company said :-

“This unauthorised activity shut down the Company’s websites and these remain inactive. Some of the Company’s social media accounts have also been compromised. The Board has appointed external cyber security specialists whose investigations are underway to establish what happened. Work continues round the clock to bring the websites back online while our 39 retail stores across the UK have remained open and continue to trade.”

The statement says Angling Direct has contacted the law enforcement agencies and the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office.

It continued:

We are mindful of our obligations regarding data; it is too soon yet to make any determination around the impact this incident has had on personal data, but we will inform any individuals in line with our regulatory obligations should there be a need to do so. Importantly, the Company does not hold any customer financial data as our website transactions are handled by third parties.

As matters currently stand, the Board does not anticipate that this incident will have a detrimental impact on underlying trading and the Company will continue to assess any cost exposure that this incident may create. The Board will provide a further update as and when appropriate and apologises for any disruption that has been caused to customers by this incident.