A California government website has been taken offline after repeated hacker attacks that link the website to porn sites.
SILICON VALLEY: A California government website has been taken offline after repeated hacker attacks that link the website to porn sites.
The Transportation Authority of Marin's tam.ca.gov Web site was offline yesterday, its front page replaced with a placeholder page saying "Sorry for the inconvenience, our website is currently under construction. Please check back later. Thank you !!!".
"The site was shut down... to step back and determine what was the best action to take to address the continued contamination," said Dianne Steinhauser, the Authority's executive director.
"The site is down until it is restructured with additional security, can be sponsored by a more reliable ISP, and perhaps secured from this occurring," Steinhauser told the online technology news site, InfoWorld.
Last week, the porn attack prompted federal officials to pull the plug on California's "ca.gov" Web network, creating an emergency for the state Informational Technology Department until the connection was fully restored after several hours.
Steinhauser was surprised by the state and federal reaction to her agency's longstanding problem with a pornographic freeloader that has been using her agency's Web site.
She said state technology official told her the statewide shutdown was on the verge of becoming such an emergency that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was about ready to call the president.
The US General Services Administration's actions would have eventually made it impossible for Internet users to visit State of California Web sites or send e-mail to government officials.
However, state officials were able get the federal agency to reverse course within a few hours and only minimal disruptions were reported.
"The feds were probably taking appropriate action, but they were probably using a shotgun to kill a flea," John Hanacek, spokesman for the state Department of Technology Services told the local newspaper, the Marine Independent Journal.
The state was not aware of the full-scale shutdown of ca.gov until it started receiving a growing number of complaint calls about connection problems, Hanacek said.
A GSA spokeswoman said "The potential exposure of pornographic material to the citizens -- and tens of thousands of children -- in California was a primary motivator for U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to request immediate corrective action."
The hacker was first discovered in April, prompting officials to beef up the security of the site, but the problem reappeared early last month and continues to plague the site.
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