News

Attackers Deface SCO Site with Microsoft Lawsuit Threat

Attackers defaced the SCO Website at least twice in recent days -- in one case changing the company's logo to "We own all your code, pay us all your money," and in the other case claiming the company was preparing to sue Microsoft.

In the joke lawsuit, attackers changed the top of the page to "SCO vs World" and said SCO had found "parts of our code in almost all Microsoft software. We want to bring an action against Microsoft and our legal department is working on that."

The Website was fixed as of Tuesday.

SCO, with its unpopular and high-profile lawsuits claiming IP rights to large swaths of open source code, has been a frequent target of Internet attacks. According to Netcraft, an Internet services company that tracks the uptime of many Websites, the SCO site and related domains were offline for an extended period on Nov. 22.

SCO's worst outage came in February, when it was targeted by the authors of the MyDoom attack. That attack programmed several thousand computers to launch a distributed denial of service attack against www.sco.com on Feb. 1. The site was offline for more than a month.

Any joking suggestion that SCO would sue Microsoft runs counter to the widespread belief in open source circles that Microsoft played a large role in SCO's anti-Linux spree of legal actions, which has served to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt among corporate IT departments about their legal exposure related to open source software.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

Featured

  • Microsoft Offers Support Extensions for Exchange 2016 and 2019

    Microsoft has introduced a paid Extended Security Update (ESU) program for on-premises Exchange Server 2016 and 2019, offering a crucial safety cushion as both versions near their Oct. 14, 2025 end-of-support date.

  • An image of planes flying around a globe

    2025 Microsoft Conference Calendar: For Partners, IT Pros and Developers

    Here's your guide to all the IT training sessions, partner meet-ups and annual Microsoft conferences you won't want to miss.

  • Notebook

    Microsoft Centers AI, Security and Partner Dogfooding at MCAPS

    Microsoft's second annual MCAPS for Partners event took place Tuesday, delivering a volley of updates and directives for its partners for fiscal 2026.

  • Microsoft Layoffs: AI Is the Obvious Elephant in the Room

    As Microsoft doubles down on an $80 billion bet on AI this fiscal year, its workforce reductions are drawing scrutiny over whether AI's ascent is quietly reshaping its human capital strategy, even as official messaging avoids drawing a direct line.