Town website ‘infected’ but no harm done

KEARNY –

The town’s website went down for a short time but was quickly returned to service last week.

Mayor Alberto Santos attributed the episode to a “malware infection. We had to transfer the site to a new server.”

The incident happened last Tuesday morning, Jan. 31, at about 9 a.m.

When people tried to access the site by going to kearnyusa.com or kearnynj.org, they got an “error message” advising that the site was unavailable.

But by the next morning, the system “was back up,” the mayor said. “It took a day to transfer it over.”

Town Administrator Michael Martello said the town’s website hosting vendor, Bright Idea Web Site, of West Orange, “changed the IP address of the server” to restore order to the system.

He said that there was no way to determine the source of the malware.

Since the website carries no data or confidential information, the town was not compromised in any way, Martello said, nor was any material on the website lost, he added.

“It’s never happened before in the 18 years we’ve had the site up,” Martello said.

– Ron Leir

 

 

 

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