Macon County Circuit Clerk Website Hacked By Iranian Hackers

• Attackers hacked the website of Macon County Circuit Clerk and defaced the webpage with a graphic of a person in a Guy Fawkes mask.
• However, the county’s Information Technology department restored the webpage.

What’s the matter?

Macon County in Illinois had its Circuit Clerk official website hacked on August 18, 2019. However, the county’s Information Technology department restored the webpage by 10 am on August 19.

What happened?

Attackers hacked the website of Macon County Circuit Clerk and defaced the webpage with a graphic of a person in a Guy Fawkes mask. A message below the image read “Hacked by Iranian Hackers. Hacked by Mamad Warning. We are always closer to you. Your identity is known to us. Your information is for us ;) take care.”

Visitors who clicked the image were redirected to the hackers' Instagram page.

The Circuit Clerk Lois Durbin confirmed that the personal information of residents are not compromised in the hack as all personal identification information is stored on a separate system. “The firewall went up, and everything was protected and nothing was compromised,” Durbin said.

What was the response?

• Upon discovery, the County reported the incident to the Illinois State Terrorism Intelligence Center, operated by the State Police, Illinois National Guard, FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and Department of Homeland Security.
• The County officials are taking the necessary precautionary measures and reviewing the cybersecurity procedures in order to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

“The people in our IT Department are just trained to defend against these types of things. The Intelligence Center workers are trained to go after them,” Macon County Clerk Josh Tanner said, Herald & Review reported.

Worth noting

Earlier this month, Randolph County website, Murfreesboro City Water Department’s Bill Payment Website, and Crook County government and sheriff's office websites were also hacked by Iranian hackers.