State websites, phones disabled in cyber-attack

An attack by the “hacktivist” group Anonymous took down all state websites and internet, telephone and email service for more than four hours Sunday evening.

The so-called “distributed denial of service” cyber-attack targeting the state occurred shortly after 5:30 p.m., causing a temporary shutdown of internet services, said Tom Hoyt, spokesman for the Department of Administrative Services.

The problem was fixed and websites and other services were restored about 9:50 p.m. Sunday, Hoyt said.

A denial-of-service attack generates a flood of messages, connection requests and other incoming traffic to slow down or crash the targeted computer system.

“It was not a breach — no personal information was compromised,” he said.

A source who asked not to be identified said the attack was carried out as part of the activist group Anonymous’ #OpUSA operation, with it taking credit on Twitter and on the dark web.

The #OpUSA cyber-attacks have been targeted at governments, financial institutions and others in protest of foreign affairs moves by the U.S., including President Donald Trump’s move to recognize the Palestinian-contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Last summer, 11 state websites, including that of Gov. John Kasich, were hacked and replaced with a pro-Islamic State, anti-Trump message. No state or personal information was compromised by the “internet graffiti,” officials said.