Why are top university websites serving porn? It comes down to shoddy housekeeping.
Hundreds of subdomains belonging to prestigious universities like Berkeley, Columbia, and Washington University have been hijacked to serve pornographic and malicious content due to poor DNS record management. Researchers found that outdated, unmonitored CNAME records—left behind after subdomains were decommissioned—allowed scammers to take control. The issue highlights widespread lapses in IT oversight at decentralized academic institutions. Search engines continue to index these hijacked pages, even after some fixes have been implemented.
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Hazy Hawk swoops in Why are top university websites serving porn? It comes down to shoddy housekeeping. Hundreds of subdomains from dozens of universities have been hijacked by scammers. Dan Goodin – Apr 24, 2026 3:00 pm | 58 Credit: ssuaphoto | iStock / Getty Images Plus Credit: ssuaphoto | iStock / Getty Images Plus Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav Websites for some of the world’s most prestigious universities are serving explicit porn and malicious content after scammers exploited the shoddy record-keeping of the site administrators, a researcher found recently.
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