We suggested last year that voters in the US election might be targeted by internet-based dirty tricks - it happened last night when visitors to Barack Obama’s website were redirected to his competitor Hillary Clinton. Sometimes it’s a shame to be right.

Security firm Symantec’s blog has an explanation of what happened.

The attacker used a part of site that allows users to post comments to post code instead. When that page is next loaded, the company says, a web browser can unwittingly try to execute the code:

“In the case of the alleged attack on the Obama Web site, the attacker posted code that would cause the person trying to view the post to be immediately directed to Hillary Clinton’s Web site.”

That strategy is more commonly used to redirect a browser to a site that attempts to install malicious software on their computer.

The problem has now been fixed, and probably had no effect on the poll results in Pennsylvania. But it serves as a reminder that political websites can be as vulnerable as any other. Not only could attacks on campaign websites intercept the large amounts of money they deal with, but they could undermine the democratic process too.

Tom Simonite, online technology reporter

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