14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian messages appeared all of a sudden on Delaware’s treasury division website; hackers took over the website to express their views on the Gaza conflict.
This was possible because the Treasury website was managed by a third-party and not administered through government’s services, according to Elaine Starkey, chief of security for the state’s Department of Technology and Information, quoted by Dover Post.
According to Starkey, the Treasury wanted their own look, and because of this, they decided it was best to choose the web hosting services of a different entity.
The intruders identified themselves as SaLeM group and the message stated that the hacking would not stop until Gaza was free.
Although there is no information on the time the hackers managed to deface the pages, the website was completely restored a few hours after officials learned of the incident.
Starkey told the publication that this might be part of a larger defacement campaign as multiple websites across the United States had the same fate.
She also said that the hackers leveraged some security flaws for the intrusion and that no information was stolen, their purpose seeming to be sending a message out about the conflict in Gaza.