The hack seems to be kind of abrupt and was carried out by a group called, “Team System DZ”, which does not seem like a name related to Islamic State.The message had a logo with the symbol of Islamic State as seen on flags hailed by ISIS which is a writing in Arabic and translated to English means that there is no God but Allah and Mohammad is the messenger of Allah.The phrase itself is widely used in the Islamic culture and is known as Shahada. Apart from the text, the message also played an Islamic call to prayer.
Government officials left baffled
After the attack, Governor John Kasich’s website was down for maintenance but later returned back online.The attack has left Government officials baffled and the attack also took place on Ohio Treasurer, Josh Mandel’s website which he also tweeted about.
The message said that President Donald Trump and ‘his people’ will be held accountable for every drop of blood that is flowing in Muslim countries. It said that President Trump will be held accountable along with his people for every drop of blood that is flowing in Muslim countries.
Governor Kasich’s spokesperson, Emmalee Kalmbach said that they were working to fix the problem as soon as they were notified about it and will continue to monitor any activity on the website closely.Many other Government websites were hacked including the website of Ohio Office of Health Transformation and Ohio Department of Medicaid.
They too came online later. But a few other websites were down for maintenance for a while longer which included the website of First Lady Karen Kasich, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections and the website of Ohio’s General Inspector. They came back online later at midnight.
Wasn't the attack limited to Ohio alone and possible Russian connection?
Ohio alone wasn’t affected as the website of Brookhaven in New York was also found to have been affected, as reported by the New York Post. The group responsible for this has carried out multiple different hacks in the past and a lot of their attacks had anti-Israel messages which should give us an idea of what their agenda is.
This attack comes at a time when the United States is investigating the matter of Russian intervention in the 2016 Presidential Election. It is alleged that Russian cyber attacks affected the results of the elections for nefarious purposes but the investigation has not reached a final conclusion yet.
