German hackers attempting to attack their country's stock market index hit the wrong target and took down the fan site of a French rugby team instead.
The hackers were aiming for DAX, a blue chip stock market index comprised of 30 major German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, but their sights were apparently off, and what they actually hit — and quite successfully — was Allezdax.com, a website for fans of Union Sportive Dacquoise, also known as US Dax, a rugby club located in the southwest of France.
The rugby team's fan site was down for two weeks after the hack, the Guardian reported.
"Our defenses were certainly inadequate," an administrator for the rugby team's fan site, said, adding that the hackers "insulted us copiously in German."
The hackers missed their mark, but for the rugby team, the spotty cybercrime work may have been a blessing in disguise.
The fansite, the Guardian said, received 700 daily hits before the attack, and has since been visited 80,000 times. The fan site claims it is now twice as popular as the German stock index site.