Gazette web site attacked for the third time - whose ox was being gored?

News 100 blueBy Pepper Parr

September 9th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

There has been a third malicious attack on the Burlington Gazette web site.

Last Friday we published a short opinion piece on the Mayor and the lunch she had with her brother in Oakville while he was in the area.

The Mayor had posted a photograph of the lunch on her Facebook page,

There were a number of comments made by readers, one of which was thought, at the time to have been sent in by the Mayor.

The Mayor did not make the comment nor was the email address used one that the mayor uses. The URL did have the words @cityofBurlington.com which was mistaken as one the city uses.

The Gazette has reached out and apologized to the Mayor. We did not hear from her directly.

While there was nothing journalistically with the piece, it was identified as an opinion and we have removed it from the web site.

Whoever sent the malicious email also managed to replace the proper IP address to an address that was applied to the last several hundred comments the Gazette has received.

We are working on that problem.

An IP address is very useful in determining just where an email came from.

This is the third time the Gazette has been tampered with. The one that took place earlier in the year locked people out of the comments section.

Someone out there thinks their “ox has been gored” and doesn’t want Gazette readers to be able to comment. Forensic investigators are being engaged to get to the bottom of this most recent attack. .

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3 comments to Gazette web site attacked for the third time – whose ox was being gored?

  • david barker

    I obviously along with all readers condemn such acts of ethernet does tpiracy.

    The Gazette and it’s systems were not hacked! The Gazette was duped! It did not notice the email address came from burlington.com not Burlington.ca.

    It does act as a perfect and very sobering example of how easy it is to be duped into thinking the email received is authentic! Perhaps the Gazette and those readers who threw stones at the City in relation to the recent fraud will now stop and be more understanding.

    Editor’s note: We beg to differ with this reader. We were both hacked and duped. We mistook @cityofburlington.com for the city web url. That was where we were duped. Where we were hacked is when someone got inside our system and set the Internet Protocol addresses to be the same fore every comment sent in. This prevented us from finding out who did the damage. Technicians are fixing that – we might yet get to find out just who the mischievous little bugger was,

  • James

    Gazette web site attached
    maybe some proof reading?

    Editor’s note:

    We caught that – thank you.

  • Wayne Brown

    Hope you don’t get attached again!

    Editor’s note: The writer is clearly talking about my personal life. I tend towards being attached – think that’s the state we human being weren’t meant to be in. My skill set is one that does not include the ability to proof read. Appreciate your bringing it to my attention.