SALISBURY, MARYLAND (1/6/2015) A TV station that serves lower Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland had its website and Twitter account taken over today by a group claiming to support the ISIS terrorist organization.
WBOC-TV reports on its website and in televised reports that the FBI has been speaking with station officials about the intrusion by the so-called CyberCaliphate group.
The intrusion happened in late morning and a similar cyber attack reportedly happened at the Albuquerque Journal newspaper’s Twitter account.
The station regained control of the website but the group still had control of the WBOC Twitter account at 7 p.m. and had posted links to the group’s Facebook page, which has since been taken down. (UPDATE: Twitter account still under hacker’s control at noon Wednesday).
Ethan Holland, WBOC’s director of digital media, said in a website report, “Around 11 o’clock we saw that our twitter password had been changed and we were locked out. Then around 11:30 we saw that our website had been modified.”
WBOC said the pictures appeared to support the Islamic militant group ISIS.
“While the reaction was swift, the damage was done. Links were shared with the public through WBOC.com and twitter,” according to WBOC’s report.
Station General Manager Craig Jahelka said, “We needed to let everyone know this was not our doing and we are doing everything we can to correct the situation.”