Story highlights
Maryland's Howard County website is hacked
Several websites in Ohio were affected
The websites of Ohio Gov. John Kasich and a Maryland County were hacked Sunday, displaying what appeared to be pro-ISIS propaganda.
Visitors to governor.ohio.gov were greeted with a black background and an Arabic symbol while an Islamic call to prayer played in the background.
“You will be held accountable Trump,” text on the landing page said, “you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries.”
“I Love Islamic state,” it said.
A government website in the state of Washington is the latest victim of a hacking attack that plants what appears to be pro-ISIS propaganda.
Those pages displayed the same message that Kasich’s did. In addition to the pro-ISIS language, a line appeared on each page that said “Hacked by Team System DZ.”
It was not immediately clear who the group was – or whether it was genuinely affiliated with ISIS.
Kasich’s staff said Sunday that they were aware of the hack and working to resolve the issue. They’d been working on the hack on the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website when they were alerted to their own hack.
In a later statement, Tom Hoyt, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, said that IT staff were working to resolving the issue.
“All affected servers have been taken offline and we are investigating how these hackers were able to deface these websites,” he said. “We also are working with law enforcement to better understand what happened.”
State Treasurer Josh Mandel posted about the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website on Facebook. “Wake up freedom-loving Americans,” he said. “Radical Islam infiltrating the heartland.”
The FBI’s Ohio field office would not say whether Team System DZ was known to them.
Howard County, Maryland
ISIS propaganda content also appeared on the Howard County, Maryland, government website Sunday. The county is in central Maryland, near Baltimore and Washington.
It was restored to normal by Monday morning.
“Thank you to those of who noticed that the Howard County Government website may have been hacked,” the county posted on Facebook.
“There was no breach of data and no personal information was compromised,” according to a statement from Howard County Executive Allan H. Kittleman. “Howard County government is working with law enforcement agencies and an investigation is underway. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
CNN’s Joe Sterling, Shawn Nottingham and Yousuf Basil contributed to this report.