The hack of the city of Tyler’s website earlier this month was not related to the recent attacks in almost two dozen Texas cities.
This round of cyberattacks did not affect Tyler, according to the city’s IT Department.
The city’s website was hacked Aug. 5 when cityoftyler.org was briefly taken over and the homepage replaced with a picture of someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask holding up a sign with an emoji giving the middle finger.
The hack also included profanity and comments about government corruption. The hacked page was active for at least three hours.
The party claiming credit was Vanda the God, a global hacking group that has struck dozens of government websites.
The city’s IT Department worked with its third party vendor NetSam to update and secure the website, which went live on Sunday after 13 days down.
In the downtime, the city’s website offered links to some city services, such as searching the library’s card catalog, paying a water bill, paying a traffic ticket or watching a previously recorded City Council meeting. There also was a staff directory.
Meeting agendas continued to be posted on bulletin boards inside and outside City Hall, 212 N. Bonner Ave., pursuant to the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Even though the site is back up, some features, such as fillable forms, will remain down until all features can be secured, the city’s Chief Information Officer Benny Yazdanpanahi said.
The city has a new website in development, a process that started in the spring.
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