By CARRIE STAMBAUGH
ASHLAND — The City of Ashland’s new Web site was vandalized over the weekend by hackers who posted graphic photos of injured and deceased Iraqi war casualties on the site and claimed to be Islamic fundamentalists.
It is unclear who actually targeted the site, which did not yet have extensive security measures in place and was still being developed.
According to Matt Crum, the city’s Web designer, the site was reportedly hacked sometime Saturday or early Sunday. Crum, who contracts with the city on a part-time basis, was not alerted until late Sunday and was quickly able to take down the site and repair the damage.
On Monday, Crum told city officials — many of whom had not seen the damage firsthand — that the site was targeted by a “brute-force attack, in which a hacker will try every possible password, in theory.”
Economic Development Director Chris Pullem, who oversees the site, said Crum told him Ashland is not the only municipality to be targeted. The hackers reportedly target sites with government domains.
Pullem said the site had not been officially launched and, as a result, did not have all its security measures in place. When it was hacked this weekend, Pullem said, “it was just a shell where he (Crum) activated it so city staff could start to look at where they were going to add their content.”
Security measurers were put in place following the attack and city officials said they were confident the site will be properly safeguarded when launched later this month.
City staff were suppose to attend tutorials on Monday to learn how to update the site but the sessions were canceled due to the weekend’s events. Pullem speculated the training would take place next week.
“In a way we’re sort of fortunate it happened because we hadn’t migrated over any of our critical data and this gives us a chance to work out how we’re going to handle these things in the future if they ever come up and I think we’ve expedited the things we now have in place ... Compared to yesterday we’re in a much better position,” Pullem said.
City Manager Steve Corbitt said Monday the city had no intention of investigating the incident further.
CARRIE STAMBAUGH can be reached at cstambaugh@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.
