The hackers replaced the "Welcome to Randolph County" normal homepage with a dark screen and a graphic of a person in a Guy Fawkes mask holding a protest sign. The mask has become an international symbol of protest movements.
Randolph County Manager Hal Johnson said the county's information technology department is conducting an investigation. No information was compromised, and there was no ransom made against the county to restore the website, Johnson told The High Point Enterprise.
The hack may be connected to an offshore hacking group that attacked other local government websites recently.
“Our IT department was alerted by system safeguards and took quick action to remove the message, but many citizens saw the hacked message,” Johnson said in an email sent to the Randolph County Board of Commissioners. “Corrective action has been taken to insure that this type of computer attack will not be successful in the future. Law Enforcement was quickly notified of the computer attack.”
©2019 The High Point Enterprise (High Point, N.C.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
