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Published: Monday, Jan. 07, 2013 / Updated: Monday, Jan. 07, 2013 03:58 PM

2 York Co. government web sites attacked by cyber intruders

By Jonathan McFadden - jmcfadden@heraldonline.com

Two York County government websites were hacked and defaced early Monday morning by cyber intruders claiming to be part of a Middle Eastern digital security team.

Public informational websites for the York County Solicitor's Office and York County Economic Development were defaced with pop-up windows emblazoned with a map of Iran in the background and words declaring, "Hacked by Ashiyane Digital Security Team." The pop-up window circles around the screen before fully opening and displaying typed yellow words saying, "We Love Iran" and "D4J Was Here-."

Officials weren't alerted to the breach until Monday, said Joel Abernathy, director of the county's management information technology department.

Abernathy said hackers gained access to the websites through one of the county's older web servers that housed the solicitor's office and economic development websites, both of which didn't contain any personal or confidential information. For the past several months, the county has been migrating its many websites from the old server, built in 2003, to a server run and operated by Sturgis Web Services, a private web firm based out of Fort Mill.

The county's spent about $14,000 to move sites to the company's server, which would add enhanced security, Abernathy said.

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