Bea Karnes reports:
Hackers took control of the five news websites of Embarcadero Media Group on Thursday night, according to the media outlet.
The websites of Palo Alto Weekly, The Almanac, Mountain View Voice and Pleasanton Weekly were all reportedly attacked at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
Embarcadero Media took the websites — PaloAltoOnline.com, mv-voice.com, almanacnews.com, pleasantonweekly.com, and danvillesanramon.com — down while working to restore them. They have since been restored.
A message left on the defaced home pages referred to Anonymous and the sites’ alleged “failure to remove content that has been harmful to the well-being and safety of others,” warning that “failure to honor all requests to remove content will lead to the permanent shutdown of all Embarcadero Media Group websites.”
The warning apparently left the media group scratching its head as the warning does not make clear what content was supposedly harmful or in need of removing.
Read more on Patch.com.
A news story on the Palo Alto Weekly that also ran on their other sites provides additional information:
There is no indication that the email addresses and passwords of readers who are registered users of the company’s websites were hacked, but the perpetrator did have access to those data files,which could have been taken, according to Embarcadero President and CEO Bill Johnson. He advised readers who are registered users to change their passwords and, if they use the same password on other sites, to change all of them.
The company does not store any credit card information on its computer systems, so that data is not at risk, he said.
The statement does not explain what content might have triggered the attack, but reports that each website’s URL was replaced with the text “Unbalanced journalism for profit at the cost of human right. Brought to you by the Almanac.”
So it seems self-described members of Anonymous are upset about something that was published, but I have no idea what the problematic content was. If anyone involved wants to provide additional information, please email admin[at]databreaches.net. OpenGPG key: 0x0625E4BA FingerPrint: 03A3 FC9B 05AA B1E2 CC7C 9413 6180 60DD 0625 E4BA