Tasteless hack leaves web users fuming

Visitors to over 10,000 sites hosted by NetNames were shocked this morning to find offensive messages from a hacker in place of the sites they were looking for.

The page they were redirected to contains an image of a small pink rabbit propped up on a computer keyboard.

The screen of the computer reads: "If you want to see the internet again, give us Mr Bin Laden and $5 million in a brown paper bag. Love Fluffi B."

Beside the picture are the words "Fluffi Bunni goes JIHAD", and beneath it there is a rambling diatribe against organised religion and the role of the US in global affairs.

The hack is a tasteless slap in the face for web users still reeling from Tuesday's attacks.

One silicon.com reader wrote in to say: "While it's not surprising this has spewed onto the web, it's brought things a lot closer to home than I would have liked and I'm sickened even more than before."

The attack affected sites that use NetNames to redirect visitors to another domain. The reader reports that NetNames responded to the hack "pretty well", resolving the problem within an hour of being notified.

Jonathan Robinson, CEO of NetBenefit, which owns NetNames, confirmed the problem was first noticed shortly before 09:00 (BST), and resolved just over an hour later.

He said: "We took a precautionary approach. We knew it could affect thousands of users, so rather than trying to patch it up we sent all requests to an error page until we had it sorted out."