TechCrunch, the technology blog started by zip.ca founder Michael Arrington, has risen in popularity over recent months, with 0.27% of internet users now visiting the site regularly, according to Alexa.com. Shortly after the hack first happened, the site put up a brief message saying "We'll be back soon", followed later by a slightly longer message, explaining that a hack had occurred, and that it would be up again shortly.
"At approximately 10:30 pm PST on Monday evening the main site in the TechCrunch Network – techcrunch.com – was hacked and redirected. The site was back up briefly at 11:30 pm but shortly went down again. As of 2:00 am, the site is back up and appears to be stable."
The site was replaced by several messages containing expletives, and pointing users toward adult content. Graham Cluley at Sophos says that the site doesn't appear to have been infected by malware. Had the hackers done that, rather that making their attack more obvious, millions of machines could potentially have been hit.
TechCrunch will be a main port of call for information about Apple's product launch, scheduled for Wednesday morning, which has the internet buzzing with anticipation.
Motives for the hack remain unclear, but Arrington has become a controversial figure in the technology sector, sparking frequent backlashes with his outspoken posts on the site. He has been spat on and served with death threats, one of the most recent of which caused him to take a break.