Asbury Park city website hacked a second time
Image of soldier and Turkish flag replace "splash" page
The City of Asbury Park website [cityofasburypark.com], a topic of discussion at recent council meetings, has been hacked for a second time.
The group “Ayyildiz Tim,” or Ayyildiz Team, who is believed to be responsible for the first Aug. 11 hack that replaced the website with a blue image of a man holding a rifle, has seemingly replaced the city’s temporary website with an image of a soldier, the outline of several Turkish countries and their flags and a large Turkish flag [shown above].
After about a minute of music, the page redirects to the Ayyildiz Team Facebook page.
Online forums suggest the group is a set of Turkish hackers who find weak website codes and replace them with their own images and music.
The image currently occupies what was the city’s temporary “splash” page.
The council had proposed drafting a request for proposals for vendors to submit bids to upgrade the website during a July meeting, but efforts were stalled while they waited for confirmation of funding.
Within a week of proposing the redesign, the city’s website was hacked for the first time.
A splash page was constructed in the weeks after the hack, it contained “city contact information, important notices and links,” according to Asbury Park Police Chief Mark Kinmon.
“This is a temporary solution until a new website is designed and implemented,” he said in an email to the Sun.
The splash page was meant to protect the city website from future hacks while the new website was constructed, he said.
Last week, council members Sue Henderson and Any Quinn held a forum with city residents to discuss their ideas about what the new city website might contain.
“The scope of the project includes both the content management system, which controls the functionality of the website; and the design, which encompasses site organization, graphics, and content,” Quinn previously told the Sun.
By Sept.18 the council hopes to have a completed request for proposal, as determined at the Aug. 21 meeting.
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