Pro-Daesh hackers target Wisconsin government websites

An Algeria-based group calling itself Team System DZ spent most of last week spreading Daesh propaganda, defacing 88 domains in just three days. Among the defacements were domains used by Wisconsin’s Richland County government, which the group has hit three times in just over a year.

Daesh (al-dowla al-islaamiyya fii-il-i’raaq wa-ash-shaam, a.k.a. ISIS/ISIL) has its own PR machine, but that doesn’t stop sympathizers from acting on their own in order to promote ideals and rhetoric.

Last week, Team System DZ did just that, targeting 88 domains in three days. The domains were hosted in the U.S., U.K. France, and Israel.

The U.S. defacements targeted websites operated by Richland County in Wisconsin, which is unfortunate, because it marks the third time in just over a year the group has hit them.

The most recent defacements affected the main domain for Richland County, as well as the websites for the county Sheriff’s Department, the Veteran’s Services department, Health and Human Services, and the Emergency Management department. Moreover, the county ambulance service, the recycling committee, land conservation department, parks commission, and the county fair were also defaced.

The defacements used broken English, and embedded an audio file that plays once the page is loaded. In part, the message tells readers that:

“The Islamic state will not show mercy will not be tolerated on any drop of blood bleed every Muslim in Iraq or in any Muslim country (sic).”

When it came to the websites outside of the U.S., the defacement messages were changed depending on the location of the domain. In Israel, the messages talked about revenge for the Islamic State along side a brief “go to hell Israel.”

In the U.K., the defacements were written in Arabic and called the country a slave to France. The message was repeated for domains in France.

A mirror of the U.S. defacements in Wisconsin can be viewed here, but an entire archive of Team System DZ is also available.