CNET Pranked By Web Site's Fake 'All Out War' Hack During DEFCON

In a piece describing the paranoid vibe in Las Vegas during the DEFCON convention, CNET reported Friday that the Wet Republic web site "had two images vandalized" with digital graffiti. But their reporter now writes that "my paranoia finally got the best of me, and it turned out to be an ad campaign."

The images included a scribbled beard and eye patch on a photo of bikini model, along with the handwritten message "It's all out war." CNET's updated story now reports that "It looked like a prank you'd see from a mischievous hacker..."
When I spotted the vandalism on the Wet Republic site Friday morning, it looked like other attacks I'd seen throughout the week, such as a Blue Screen of Death on a bus ticket machine... Hakkasan, which hosts the event at MGM Grand, said the "vandalism" was part of the cheeky advertisements for a seasonal bikini contest it's been running since 2015. The "all-out war" is between the models in the competition, not between hackers and clubs. Hakkasan's spokeswoman said nothing on its network has been compromised. So maybe not everything online in Las Vegas is getting hacked this week, and this n00b learned to calm down the hard way.
For that matter, maybe that blue screen of death was also just another random Windows machine crashing.

CNET's reporter made one other change to his article. He removed the phrase "when hackers are in town for Defcon, everything seems to be fair game."