Tuesday, March 10th, 2015
Investigators seek source of 'Islamic State' hacking of Eldora Speedway's website
By Jared Mauch
ROSSBURG - Officials are still trying to track down who is responsible for hacking the
Eldora Speedway website ostensibly in the name of the Islamic State.
The Darke County Sheriff's Office was notified of the posting that read "Hacked by Islamic State (ISIS) We are everywhere :)" by Eldora general manager Roger Slack on Saturday afternoon.
No personal information or data were compromised during the incident and no credit card numbers or addresses were stolen, according to chief deputy Mark Whittaker.
Whittaker said the short-lived posting Saturday afternoon has not been confirmed as coming from the terror group.
"The parties are not known, not confirmed," Whittaker said.
A number of hackers could have posed as ISIS, he said.
The posting also had an image of what appeared to be a black flag associated with ISIS with foreign language on it. Music in a foreign language also played when the site was accessed, according to the Darke County Sheriff's Office report.
The message appeared on the site from 2 p.m. and the site returned to normal about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Whittaker said.
Track officials also contacted their IT personnel and GoDaddy security personnel to look into the situation, Whittaker said. GoDaddy.com manages the track's website.
NASCAR officials and track owner Tony Stewart were made aware of the situation that afternoon, Slack said.
"It has been deferred to the FBI, their cybercrime unit," he said. "The cybercrime unit is familiar with these kinds of attacks."
Whittaker said the path of the posting has been traced back to a plug-in file commonly used on web platforms, which was hacked allowing for the message to be posted.
The incident is still under investigation.
