First report of child porn hosted on Irish website

THE first case of child pornography being hosted on an Irish website came to light last year after eastern European criminals hijacked the site.

Internet watchdog Hotline.ie revealed the first instance of child porn being hosted on a site here had occurred due to “lax security” regarding passwords on the site, which allowed hackers to gain entry and open up credit card payment options for those seeking to access the material.

Gardaí investigating the case are satisfied the website owner knew nothing of the security breach, thought to have been carried out by hackers in a former Soviet state. Within five hours of the discovery the content had been removed.