Nokia takes down developer forum after 'Homer Simpson' hack

One week after it was hacked to redirect users to an image of a back-slapping Homer Simpson, Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia took down its developer forum. Nokia said the move was a precautionary one, even as it said the site does not hold any sensitive information like credit card details. "The database table records includes members’ email addresses and, for fewer than 7% who chose to include them in their public profile, either birth dates, homepage URL or usernames for AIM, ICQ, MSN, Skype or Yahoo. However, they do not contain sensitive information such as passwords or credit card details and so we do not believe the security of forum members’ accounts is at risk. Other Nokia accounts are not affected," it said in an email, according to tech site TechKnots. Hackers hit Nokia's developer forum site last weekend with an SQL injection, redirecting users to a custom page with an image of Homer Simpson. Nokia said its investigation showed a database table containing developer forum members’ email addresses has been accessed. "Initially we believed that only a small number of these forum member records had been accessed, but further investigation has identified that the number is significantly larger," it said. "We are not aware of any misuse of the accessed data, but we have identified that your email address was in one of the records accessed, though it contained none of the optional information, so we believe that the only potential impact to you may be unsolicited email. Nokia apologizes for this incident," it added. Nokia also said the initial vulnerability was addressed immediately, but the developer community website has been taken offline as a precautionary measure. TechKnots noted the hacker's message “No Dumping, No Leaking!" hints the hack was "just for fun" and other sensitive information might not be released on the web. But it said this might still cause distress among developers as Microsoft recently released the latest version of the Windows Phone SDK 7.1. "Ever since Nokia has announced the Microsoft-Nokia partnership, the developer forum has seen about 55% increase in activity," it noted. — TJD, GMA News