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Ohio Government Websites Attacked by Hackers in Islamic State-Supporting Group

photo of hacked Ohio website
The pictured message appeared on many Ohio government websites, including the prison department, state Medicaid and Governor's websites.

Several state government websites in Ohio and two other states were down for several hours after hackers posted messages that seem to support the Islamic State.

The same messages were posted on the official sites of the Ohio prisons department and the state Medicaid and casino control agencies, among others, as well as that of Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and Gov. John Kasich, who was a Republican candidate for president last year.

The message from a group calling itself Team System DZ said President Trump and his people would be accountable “for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries”, and ended with the words “I love Islamic state”.

The spokesman for Ohio’s Department of Administrative Services confirms the hack hit 10 sites and two servers. Government websites in Brookhaven, New York and Howard County, Maryland were also shut down after the same message appeared on Sunday. 

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.