The morning after primary elections potentially reshaped Philadelphia’s City Council, hackers with a pro-Islam, anti-American message took down council’s website.
"According to our service provider, PHLCouncil.com was hacked and replaced with new content at 7:03 am today," said council spokeswoman Jane Roh. "Our service provider was temporarily locked out of the website, but was able to get back in and delete the hacked page at 9:09 a.m."
Roh said they had no information about who was behind the hacking. However, hacking group Cyb3r Command0s posted on its Facebook page around 7 a.m. Wednesday that hacker H1d3n Root claimed responsibility for the post on PHLCouncil.com.
The group’s message, which was later taken down read "Hacked By H1d3n Root. I am Muslim & Islam is my way of Life. Cyb3r CommandOS. We are a International Underground Hacking Team. We are Team Cyb3r Commandos. Your Security Is Very Low,Patch Your Security. ..:: Your server Boxed ::.. op USA & Israel. We Are."
The message then contained a group of scrolling online aliases and a contact email.
The group has posted similar messages on other hacked sites including sites for parks, communications firms and even schools, according to the hacking group.
Council’s website, which, according to Nutter Administration spokesman Mark McDonald is hosted by another group than Phila.gov sites that remained secure, remained down later Wednesday morning.
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The council site got back online at 10:11 a.m.
"No City information that would be deemed sensitive was ever compromised or accessed," said Roh.
The council site is hosted by BlueHost.com that claims to be one of the "world's largest providers of cloud-based online solutions."
Roh said the council is working with the city Office of Innovation and Technology to prevent future attacks and that Philadelphia Police are aware of the incident.
