School Websites Hacked to Show Pro-IS Message

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.

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 that a small file was injected into the root of one of its websites. That redirected approximately 800 school and district webpages to a video containing an audible Arabic message, unknown writing and a picture of Saddam Hussein.

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

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.

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

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