CYBERSPACE — College curriculums have changed a lot over the centuries, with some universities adding sometimes strange, sometimes wonderful, sometimes baffling offerings. The advent of the internet has expanded the communication options available to educators and students alike. Alas, it has also expanded the communication options of code crackers. Someone was doing extra credit work recently and their field of study was definitely interfering with the transmission of important college related information. In addition to the usual details and links to university specific offerings, several college websites in the United States and United Kingdom unexpectedly found themselves serving as link points to pornography and erectile dysfunction medications.

Cross site scripting (XSS) and cracking appear to be the culprits in a recent series of exploitation attacks on collegiate websites too lazy to update their software or learn proper Web design. Among the wounded websites are those belonging to venerable institutions in the United States, including the University of Massachusetts (UMASS), University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT).

Talk about embarrassing, MIT!

Approximately 80-percent of all known security breaches since 2007 have been related to XSS code infusion into otherwise innocent websites, according to TGDaily.com. Typically, the infested site appears perfectly normal to the casual observer, but the goal of crackers isn’t to be obviously out of compliance with the site’s stated goal, but to subtly subvert its mission and direct traffic to places it might not otherwise go.

Government and educational domains work especially well for these sneak attacks since they are easily trusted by the general public and attacks can quickly bear fruit due to high search engine rankings.

Unfortunately for the offended web property, those high search engine rankings can suffer once Google gets wind of a problem, making the insult that much harder to take.

Although information is still sparse concerning what is said to be hundreds of affected child and adult-related UK education and government websites and forums, one Berkeley page sprouted links to a domestic site hawking Cialis and Viagra, while a UMASS page link directed visitors to a Canadian site featuring a sexy doctor in a lab coat pushing erectile enhancement meds. MIT found itself peppered with porn video links, which it promptly removed upon discovery.

Remember: never assume that a website’s character determines its surfing safety.