Hackers have gained access to the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council site, which is used to provide information on updates to best practice and industry socials.
While some hackers opt for a more garish approach to defacing an organisation’s website, this particular miscreant has chosen a more subtle approach for the IAB: AMC.
Regular copy describing an affiliate social gathering and voucher code of conduct launch now contains references to narcotics, diazepam and sildenafil, with links to sites that sell these items.
Data compromised?
It is not known if council data was held on the AMC servers and whether this might have been compromised in the hack.
PerformanceIN has reached out to the IAB and the site’s owner for comment on the situation, but no official statement was available at the time of publishing.
There is a certain irony to the IAB: AMC’s hack, with debates on the murky past of affiliate marketing cropping up at conferences every now and again.
While the offending pieces of text are not affiliate links, they are likely being used as a blackhat SEO tactic for a pharmaceutical affiliate. It shows that despite the AMC’s great work there is still a minority that transgress industry regulation.
UPDATE
The IAB has provided an official statement on the hack, which can be read below:
“This website is a facility that was created by the original AMC to provide a service to the wider affiliate community. Now that the AMC is fully integrated within the Internet Advertising Bureau, council minutes, standards and other products of the Affiliate Marketing Council are not posted to this site. We have no access to take it down as this is privately managed.”
“We have asked for this to happen and we fully understand all concerns around security. The official IAB site carries all IAB AMC material and we encourage the affiliate community to visit www.iabuk.net for all up to date info and news. Iabuk.net is constantly monitored, managed and fully secure.”