California marathon targeted in ISIS hack

A small marathon in California, the San Luis Obispo Marathon, was targeted over the weekend by a person or group purporting to be affiliated with ISIS.

The marathon’s website, for a period on Sunday, had its homepage replaced with a graphic bearing the black and white flag of ISIS and a message reading “Hacked by Islamic State (ISIS) We Are Everywhere ;).”

Race director Heather Hellman told local news station KSBY she was “shocked, actually, pretty shocked,” upon hearing the website has been the target of a hack by someone claiming an ISIS connection, but has assured runners the race will go on and it will be safe.

The marathon’s website was one in a string of website attacks on small businesses around the world, all affected in the same manner by the same graphic, including one on the North Douglas Pentecostal Church in Victoria, B.C.

The FBI and the RCMP are looking into the attacks and have already claimed they don’t believe the perpetrator behind the hacks is actually affiliated with the terrorist organization. They noted the problem likely stemmed from a WordPress plugin. All the websites attacked were built on the popular blogging software and many of them admitted to using a certain plugin which has not been identified by the authorities.

“We really don’t want to give any more notoriety to any of these groups at all,” Hellman told KSBY. “And we’re very confident and secure that whoever wants to come to our race will be safe and secure.”

The marathon is still scheduled to be held on April 26 as planned.