You'd never expect to see Armani and Ugg merchandise on a health care website

Oct 5, 2013 06:55 GMT  ·  By

The website of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the United States’ Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has been hacked. 

What’s interesting about this hack, spotted by The Weekly Standard, is that the attackers turned one of the website’s subdomains, the one of the Native American Center for Excellence (nace.samhsa.gov), into an online store.

One page was set up to sell NFL jerseys. Another one sold Ugg boots, while a third one advertised Armani fragrances. The links from these pages led to external websites that sold this type of merchandise.

According to The Weekly Standard, two of the domains are registered in the US and one in China.

The site appears to have been hacked sometime in late July, but the online stores were only removed after the media reported about the breach.

The hacked SAMHSA subdomain has been taken down and currently displays an “under maintenance” message. A Google cache of the hacked pages is available.