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School websites across U.S. hacked with pro-Islamic State message

A file photo of a man typing on a keyboard.
A file photo of a man typing on a keyboard.

BLOOMFIELD, N.J. (AP) — Hackers temporarily redirected people looking for hundreds of local school webpages across the U.S. to a video in support of the Islamic State group.

The FBI is trying to determine who was behind the hack, which hijacked school websites in Tucson, Arizona; Newtown, Connecticut; Gloucester County, Virginia; and Bloomfield, New Jersey.

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The Bloomfield school district said their website displayed the IS video for about two hours Monday before it was taken down.

SchoolDesk, the Atlanta-based company that maintains the site, said in a statement that technicians discovered a small file was injected into the root of one of its websites. That redirected approximately 800 school and district webpages to a YouTube video containing an audible Arabic message, unknown writing and a picture of Saddam Hussein.

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“It looked like it was some sort of ISIS recruitment or support video,” SchoolDesk founder Rob Freierson told NJ.com.

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SchoolDesk’s statement said the hack also affected other organizations, including private and government websites. The company has added more protections and is requiring users of its websites to reset their passwords.

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The Bloomfield district said no confidential student or teacher information was compromised.

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SchoolDesk said it was working with various investigative agencies to track the source of the hack.

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