The City of Ottawa has suspended its official website, replacing the dancing banana and largely black screen with a blue one that says “This Account Has Been Suspended” after it was hacked Friday evening.
“There’s an ongoing investigation, that’s all I can tell you this minute,” said Staff Sgt. Alder of the Ottawa Police. The police are hoping to have a press release out soon, he said.
The hack completely blocked access to the website, in an attack that singled out a member of the Ottawa Police.
It named Const. Joel Demore, who works for the western district of the police and was involved with the investigation of an Ottawa teen who allegedly faked more than 30 emergency calls and is facing 60 criminal charges, reported CBC.
The hacked website said, “Joel Demore: You laugh at us, you are scared of us, does this help your laughing? We can destroy everything, this is a flex of our power. Please, test us. You know what we want.” and includes the officer’s email address.
However, any emails sent to the listed address received an automated message saying, “I am out of office on annual leave until July 1st 2014.”
The site is still working within city hall however any emails to the city Friday evening have bounced back, according to city workers. Anyone with an urgent inquiry for the city is asked to call 311 instead.
The hacker claimed to be associated with the Twitter account @AerithXOR but the account was suspended this evening.
Before the website was suspended, the hack included the hashtag #opSoaringEagle, which linked to a website describing an attack targeted at Ottawa Police.
“This is just the start, Operation Soaring Eagle will continue, until we see fit that it is completed. We will be taking over all ottawa police networks, shutdown communications on the internet, hijack domains, serves and soo much more. It all starts today.”
The text on the website ends with “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not Forgive. We do not Forget. You should have expected us.”
The city has no updates at this time and is in the process of investigating, said Marielle Picher, a spokesperson for the city.