http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=712015 By Amy Rinard Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Jan. 28, 2008 Village of Merton - Anyone visiting the village's Web site over the weekend found a crude, obscenity-laced home page instead of the usual list of emergency phone numbers and recycling information after a computer hacker tampered with the site. "Oh, my gosh, that's not good," Julie Ofori-Mattmuller, village deputy clerk/treasurer, exclaimed as she took her first look at the Web site Monday morning during a phone conversation with a reporter. "It must have gotten hacked pretty bad." Instead of the site's usual description of the village as a "cozy community located in the Lake Country area," the hacked village home page displayed three obscene words in large letters - one flashing - and a large drawing of a crude hand gesture. Among other mostly misspelled and indecipherable words on the page was a name, Mr. Elgaarh, which turned up in an online search as a well-known computer hacker possibly from Egypt. One line on the hacked Merton home page included the word "Egyptghost." Ofori-Mattmuller said later Monday that after she saw the Web page, she immediately contacted Sandra Levins, a village resident hired to handle the Web site, to report the hacking. Levins, who did not return phone calls Monday, took down the site for a time. It was restored to its usual look by midafternoon. Ofori-Mattmuller said the site appeared Friday as it usually does. A reporter saw the vulgar, tampered-with home page Saturday. "I don't think it was there that long," she said, noting that no residents called to report a problem with the Web site. She said she can't think of why any computer hacker, especially one from another country, would want to target the Web site of a village of about 2,500 people in Wisconsin. "We've had no controversial issues here; I don't know why anyone would want to do this," she said. "Snowplowing is the biggest issue we usually have. We're a quiet little community." ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org/mailman/listinfo/isn
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