Troy school district website hacked with hate speech, graffiti

DETROIT (FOX 2) - The Troy school district's website is down Monday after an attack by hackers left the site littered with hate speech and graffiti, the district said.

The system’s internal messenger was used to send emails to staff and some families, the district added. No sensitive date or student information was compromised, it said. The hack was said to have originated from outside the country.

"The language and images used were despicable, and we strongly denounce them. We are working in collaboration with the Michigan State Cyber Response Team and an investigation is underway. Preliminary information shows that this hack generated from outside the country using a known malicious IP address and that no student information or sensitive data was comprised by the breach," Kerry Birmingham, the district spokesperson. "We understand that this has an impact that reverberates across our community but does not equally harm each member. Hate has no place in the Troy School District; acts like this will not be tolerated." 

Birmingham added that all of our websites have been taken down temporarily to reset webmaster passwords and to ensure that the hackers didn’t create any points for future access. 

"We are also tightening security measures on our vendor-hosted websites and working with their teams to ensure that this does not happen again," she said.