Police investigating after Fredericton Tourism Instagram web page hacked

Police are investigating after hackers took over Fredericton Tourism’s Instagram page and asked for a ransom.

The city regained control of the site on Sunday after being locked down on Friday morning.

Adam Bell, the city’s chief information officer, said officials would have to contact Facebook directly to regain access.

“They basically banned us from our account and then asked us to pay them so we could get it back,” he said.

Bell said hackers were demanding $ 2,500 to return the account.

He said the city has a no ransom policy. When it didn’t immediately pay for itself, hackers posted a video of two women kissing using the account’s story function.

“Everyone in town is extremely upset about the content that has been posted on our website,” he said. “We work very hard to establish a certain brand and anything that stops it is disturbing.”

Bell said that hackers also started contacting followers of the site and offering them to sell the account for $ 400.

“They haven’t used us as a stepping stone to attack other people, but they have used the communications platform as an opportunity to solicit money from others who may be willing to buy the site from them.” [them]”Said Bell.

The City of Fredericton posted a notice on Facebook urging people not to click any Fredericton Tourism links and report the page to Instagram.

How did it happen?

Bell said the Fredericton police are investigating and have some information suggesting the hackers were from another country.

“We assume that we will involve the RCMP national team in cybercrime,” he said.

He said the working theory is that one of the Instagram account operators may have clicked on a malicious link.

“All the appropriate security measures that were available to us were in place,” he said.

“But what I want to tell you is that cybercrime is an escalating industry. They are constantly developing new ways to compromise accounts and find new ways to threaten our information resources. “

He said all employees receive mandatory cybersecurity and phishing training.

He said the city hired a private company that “has very specific new technology and expertise” to assist the police in their investigation.

He said the financial cost to the city was not clear.