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Ohio government websites hacked with Islamic State propaganda

By Allen Cone
This is a portion of what the homepage of Ohio Gov. John Kasich looked like after it was hacked Sunday. Screenshot of Ohio governor's website
This is a portion of what the homepage of Ohio Gov. John Kasich looked like after it was hacked Sunday. Screenshot of Ohio governor's website

June 25 (UPI) -- Several official Ohio government websites were hacked and filled with pro-Islamic State propaganda Sunday morning.

The sites included the official Ohio governor site, as well as the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Casino Control, Ohio First Lady, Office of Workforce Transformation, Office of Health Transformation, Inspector General and Medicaid.

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The sites' homepages were replaced with a black background and accompanied by music.

The top of the page reads, "Hacked By Team System DZ."

Below that, the sites said: "Anti: Govt all word. You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries."

Toward the bottom, the sites said, "I Love Islamic state." The Team System Dz Facebook page was also included.

"As soon as we were notified of the situation we immediately began to correct it and will continue to monitor until fully resolved," a representative for Ohio Gov. John Kasich said in a statement.

ODRC spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said in a statement: "We are aware of the situation and we are working aggressively to correct the situation. A thorough investigation will be conducted to determine how this occurred and how it can be prevented in the future."

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In 2015, USA Today reported that Team System DZ is a group of "anti-Israeli Arab teenagers," according to Zone-H, a website created in 2002 to track online pages that have been defaced.

Agency websites elsewhere have been hacked by Team System DZ -- including the Aberdeen City Council website in Scotland in January, the Richland County website in Wisconsin in March 2015 and the Wight County sites in Virginia in January 2015.

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