The timing could not be worse. Nothing sucks like having a regional Web portal being ’served’ by hackers. I almost feel bad for MSN on this one.

Microsoft is red-faced over the infiltration of its South Korea MSN site by hackers. Visitors to the site, www.msn.co.kr, ran the risk of having their passwords (and as a result, other personal information) stolen. According to Microsoft, security experts found some fishy-looking code added to the MSN site and contacted them on Tuesday. The company then removed the program and had the servers patched within hours of being informed.

Ah, server patches. A Microsoft spokesman said the hackers took advantage of a known flaw for which there is a fix. However, the company to which Microsoft subcontracts the operation of the South Korean MSN site failed to keep the server patched. [Read the rest]