For about an hour Monday night, visitors to Chemeketa Community College's website may have seen Islamic State propaganda and video after blog software it uses was hacked.
Users who went to the Chemeketa's site were redirected to a page that showed a banner of red letters that read "Hacked by Team System Dz" above "i love isis" in black letters. A YouTube video also appeared on the site above profanity targeting Israel and France.
A screen shot of what users saw was provided to the Statesman Journal on Tuesday.
Chemeketa spokesman Greg Harris said the school's public website uses multiple software platforms, including WordPress, a blogging and website content management system that school officials said was hacked.
The school uses WordPress for three reasons, Harris said. The news and stories portion of the site is a feed pulled from WordPress. Chemeketa online uses WordPress as a way to market and promote online classes for distance learners. Lastly, it uses the system as an employee intranet where staff can access a newsletter blog.
Anyone who accessed the Chemeketa website for those reasons between 7 and 8 p.m. Monday night were redirected to a recruitment page for ISIS, he said.
According to Chemeketa's IT department, the website was based in Algeria and appeared to be in support of ISIS.
Around 7 p.m., Chemeketa's network security personnel were alerted to irregularities on the site. Portions of the website that use WordPress were shut down within the hour as officials investigated the problem.
"We have restored our blogging functions with additional security to prevent a future intrusion," Harris said Tuesday.
The official website for Virginia's Isle of Wight County experienced something similar on Friday, Jan. 16, according to a USA Today story on Jan. 19.
Harris pointed out the silver lining in the situation: The incident occurred on the evening of a school holiday on sites that aren't frequently accessed by students.
"The timing was somewhat fortunate for us," he said.
Chemeketa's IT technicians said Tuesday the problem was widespread among WordPress users.
jdewitt@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6714 or follow on Twitter.com @Joce_DeWitt
