Schools

Winnacunnet Website Hacked Over Weekend

Winnacunnet High School principal says information safe despite security breach

Winnacunnet High School's website was seemingly hacked over the weekend, prompting the district to temporarily disable the page while employees worked to ensure the safety of sensitive information.

Principal William McGowan said the district believes the incident was caused by a student or group of students, and while there was a security breach, he said "nothing was lost" and there were "no issues with privacy."

He said the district is "taking (the hacking) seriously," though, and is working to determine who was responsible for replacing the homepage with an image of a Turkish flag and a hacker warning, a message that was visible Saturday morning.

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"We think some local kids are fooling around with us," said McGowan. "If we find out it was a student and we find out what is going on, there could be a possible police investigation and even suspension. There's high consequences."

The district was first alerted of the issue Sunday morning after a concerned resident called School Administrative Unit 21 Superintendent Robert Sullivan. Sullivan then called McGowan, and they were later able to disable the website with the help of the school's web administrator.

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The website was restored by Monday morning. The district is currently dealing with the issue internally, although McGowan said they will turn information over to police if needed.

During the hack, the title of the WHS homepage was renamed "Hacked by Lazmania61," and site visitors were unable to navigate beyond an image depicting a Turkish flag and the following message:

"The so-called group called Anonymous hackers may make sense for you .. The fears you have them, and they are up to our power, including Survivors of the war will not end until all of you have finished. You are condemned to eat all the time! We are Turkish..."

The hack was seemingly harmless, although McGowan said it helped point out the fact that the website hasn't been updated for "a while." He said the school had planned to overhaul the site this summer, and will pay close attention to technology available to ensure this problem doesn't happen again in the future.

"We plugged some other holes... and we took the steps necessary to get us back online and at least get us through the rest of the school year with the integrity we need," said McGowan. "We'll go through the summer while working  on rebuilding the site, and we will purchase any additional security things we need as we look into this further."

The hacking is the first such issue for WHS, according McGowan.

He said the new district website will be up and running in advance of the start of the 2011-2012 school year.

Sullivan couldn't be reached for comment.


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