Hackers attack AHDB website

Computer hackers have attacked a website belonging to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

The AHDB Beef and Lamb online news centre is believed to have been hacked late on Sunday or early Monday (5-6 February).

See also: Livestock experts needed for AHDB

The hackers posted a picture of the Kurdish flag and the anti-Islamic State message: “F**k ISIS”.

The message said the site had been “hacked by MuhmadEmad” followed by the slogan “Long Live to Peshmarga” – Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.

The AHDB said it was investigating the security breach. The rogue message has been removed.

An AHDB spokesman said no sensitive data or personal information was accessible from the website.

The spokesman added: “We were one of thousands [of websites] attacked yesterday by this hacker. It was random selection rather than specifically targeted.”

The targeted websites all used the same content management system, said the AHDB spokesman.

“That was the selection criteria rather than website content,” he said.

“The offending item was taken down this morning and we have temporarily now taken the site down as thorough checks are carried out, and while all access details, which are already encrypted, are changed.

“There is no sensitive information of any kind accessible form the site.

“We are doing our best to get things up and running and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

The longer term strategy was for all AHDB websites to be managed in-house on the same content management system, said the spokesman.

“This will give us additional layers of security,” he said.