ISLAMIC extremists have targeted a North East hotel by hacking its website, in a confronting attack described by the owner as “hitting close to home”.
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A full-screen message against a black background, reading “Hacked ... United Islamic Cyber Force” had replaced what was once the home page of the Delatite Hotel website.
The message continued with: “Tell your government” and “Don’t disturb your neighbour or we will continue this” with a link to the group’s Twitter account.
It took almost two days for owners of the Mansfield hotel to get their website back.
Owner Dean Belle said the hackers did not obtain the personal information of anyone who made bookings through the website.
“We have rolling green hills and people here on holidays, we are miles away from that kind of conflict, it just brought it closer to home,” Mr Belle said.
“Nobody wants to be hacked, I have to say that given the nature of this screen capture and the currency of that whole scene in the Middle East, it felt very uncomfortable.
“We’ve had a number of phone calls from people who went on the website who rang straight away to make sure we were aware.
“They found it a bit spooky to be confronted by that when they opened the page.
“Fortunately, by using third party booking system, it adds another layer of very high protection which meant no details got out.”
The group involved has been responsible for cyber attacks internationally, which came in the wake of the massacre at French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Delatite Hotel’s website was immediately pulled down on Tuesday before IT specialists removed the hack.
The page was up and running again yesterday afternoon.
Mr Belle said the incident had occurred right before the hotel owners were due to upgrade their online security and he said it served as a warning for other businesses.
“We are concerned not just for our own banking and booking, but for anyone else who may have been similarly hit at the same time,” he said.
“Our website represents a small but important portion of our business and for many others it could have more debilitating effects.
“All business should check they have up-to-date online security and check with an IT professional if the level of security they have got is appropriate to the type of business they run.”