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‘ISIL’ hackers invade SA welfare website

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A group claiming to be Islamic State (ISIL) has hacked a website for an Adelaide-based Aboriginal community program run by welfare agency Uniting Communities.

The Paper Tracker program provides information to remote Aboriginal communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and keeps track of government commitments to the region.

Program coordinator Sue Tilley said the hackers appeared to be trying to use the website as a recruitment tool and used the site to display the IS banner and slogans.

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“I got a message from a colleague in a government department who said ‘have you seen your website?’ and I quickly had a look at it and it had been hacked by a group who seemed to have affiliations with ISIS and were trying to recruit people to become martyrs,” Ms Tilley said.

“It was just, I think, an opportunistic thing that people were just trying to hack into any website to float their banners and managed to access ours.

The agency’s IT department quickly removed the propaganda and the website is running as per usual.

“They got into our website, infected a couple of files, put up their banners and we managed to quickly sort it out, and it was a bit alarming,” she said.

“It makes one feel quite vulnerable and exposed and also worrying about you know, is all our information backed up.”

Ms Tilley said no threats or demands were made to either Uniting Communities or the Paper Tracker program.

While she said the experience was still upsetting and intrusive, she did not believe the Christian welfare group or the Paper Tracker program had been targeted for any specific reason.

“I think people just roam around the internet try and find a weak link in a website,” she said.

“If they crack it they get in and they will use it, they don’t care who you are or what you stand for so I don’t think it was sort of an intentional target.”

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