Red-faced IT bosses at Stafford Borough Council are hacked off after the authority’s website was broken into by a Turkish protest group.
The hackers forced the council to close its site after a member of staff noticed the problem when they tried to log on and saw a black screen proclaiming the Turkish Cyber Army.
The group broke into the server which provides the site, run by Mid Counties Co-op, redirecting surfers to their own site. Their home screen displayed a picture of an ancient scroll. with the words “world protest”.
It also said: “We are the king of the world/Turkish Cyber Army!” It is the first time the site, which has been running for 15 years, has been compromised and IT chiefs said no data was at risk.
The site was taken down last Wednesday, August 11, afternoon until Thursday morning.
Council spokesman Will Conaghan said the public web site is a copy that doesn’t contain any sensitive details or data.
The master site containing key information was kept safe behind firewalls, he added.
Peter Kenrick, the council’s head of technology, said: “There was no risk to data at any time. We took the site down to make sure we had the full picture. The company that services the website needs to look at security there.” The site attracts more than a thousand hits every day.
, 19/08/2010