Perth opens new city centre, hackers load it up with Pornhub
Perth's new Yagan Square has two electronic signboards. A month after the square opens, hackers load porn site Pornhub onto them.
Over a period of two years, the government of Western Australia spent AU$73.5 million ($56.4 million) to build Yagan Square. Acting as the city centre of Perth, the Square was opened last month.
And on Thursday night, hackers took over Yagan Square's two electronic billboards to display porn site Pornhub onto them.
Pictures of the high-tech prank were shared on Twitter by evening commuters. The two electronic signs were quickly disabled.
This is why we can't have nice things. Spotted in Yagan Square just now (Cheers Mitch) pic.twitter.com/cDj5EFI8Fc
— The Bell Tower Times (@BellTowerTimez) April 5, 2018
Somehow, someone has hacked the public electronic billboards at Perth's Yagan Square to display Pornhub (one of Australia's most popular websites!) @VitalPerth?? @abcperth pic.twitter.com/K9ZDSZKgLb
— Gian De Poloni (@GianDePoloni) April 5, 2018
"Yagan Square has two touchscreen wayfinding signs, one at each entrance of the William Street Mall," a spokeswoman for the city's Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority told the ABC. "Unfortunately, it appears that these screens were compromised this evening and, for a brief period of time, some inappropriate content was displayed on one of the screens.
"Both screens were immediately turned off and power has also been switched off to the units to eliminate all possibilities of a recurrence."