The hacker group Anonymous really has the Boston Police Department stumped. On Friday, February 3, Anonymous hacked the BPDNews.com website in protest of police brutality at Occupy Boston, changing the site to black with red text and embedding a music video from 80’s rapper KRS-One called “Sound Of Da Police.” Three days later, the site is still down, automatically redirecting visitors to the BPD Facebook page.
In an email to BostInno, Elaine Driscoll, a spokeswoman for the BPD said she does not have a specific time frame as to when the website will be back up and running. She writes, “WordPress, the site’s host, has requested more time to ensure that they have done everything possible to prevent a future occurrence.”
As for confidential police information being leaked to the public, Driscoll writes, “There is no private information on the news blog. It is not technically a department site as we are not the host.”
Driscoll also points to an update on the BPD Facebook page, posted at Sunday, February 5 at 12:54pm, for more details on the situation:
The Boston Police Department anticipates that our news blog, BPDNews.com, will be back up and running soon. We are working closely with federal authorities to determine the facts and circumstances of the incident. We are also working with the staff at the site’s host, WordPress, to heighten security measures. We apologize to the community for any inconvenience that this has caused.
Back in October, the BPD was hacked by Anonymous following the arrests of hundreds of protesters during a late-night raid on Dewey Square earlier that month. That hack resulted in the leak of police officers’ private information and passwords.
Updated 2/7/12, 8:10am — The BPD released another statement on their Facebook page, which reads:
Hello all- We are very sorry that BPDNews.com is still down. The site’s host, WordPress, has requested additional time to work on the issue so that they can do everything possible to prevent a future occurance. The silver lining is that we have many more Facebook fans as a result. BPD would like to welcome everyone who has connected with us on FB and thank you for joining the public safety discussion. Please let us know if there are specific topics that BPD should cover on this page and we will do our best to accommodate.