YouTube, Apple Hit By Hacker Attacks

Apple had not yet responded to the issue as Apple customer phone lines were switched off due to holiday weekend and could be contacted only by e-mails.

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Meanwhile, YouTube was also attacked, with the hackers focusing on Justin Bieber. The attack may have sent users to web pages with malicious software, though no problems have been reported yet.

The attackers incorporated code into YouTube pages devoted to the singer. As a result, users were greeted with vulgar messages about Bieber, and were also redirected to external sites that contained adult content.

The hackers were able to pull off the attack using a cross-site scripting, or XSS, vulnerability, which affected sections in the Web site where users post comments.

An XSS attack is one in which a hacker might craft a false web address that sends the user to the correct page (in this case YouTube) but runs malicious code in the background, unbeknownst to the person visiting the site. Users might also be sent to another site entirely. Such attacks often involve pulling data from cookies, small files used by Web sites to identify returning users.

The company, a subsidiary of Google, reassured users that YouTube cookies couldn't be used to access Google accounts. Nonetheless, YouTube users are advised to log out of their account and log back in again.

In spite the fact that the attack itself didn't involve malware infections, users may be at risk when they visit any Web page, especially the ones attackers redirected users to. It is not known if the destination pages contained malware, but most anti-virus software can handle such threats.

Both Google and Apple have been the targets of attacks in the past. Google's servers in China were subjected to what the company called an organized attack in January; last month 114,000 iPad owners e-mail addresses were harvested by hackers via a loophole in AT&T's Web site.