Chili, N.Y. --- Wednesday morning Town of Chili workers and others visiting www.TownOfChili.org were greeted by an unfamiliar face with an unexplained message courtesy of a hacker.
Town Supervisor David Dunning said he has no information that leads him to believe any sensitive documents or communications were accessed during this hack. The hacker appears to have simply defaced the site commonly used by the public to gain information about town programs, laws, or officials among other things.
"I come from a technology background so having that background myself (I was) not overly concerned at that point in time,” Dunning said of the moment he was made aware of the hack Wednesday morning. “And also I know what the infrastructure here is as far as our servers go, our web server and then our internal servers.”
The town’s Information Technology department is working to repair some basic functions of the site in the next day or so. A link to register for town recreation leagues was restored Wednesday afternoon and serves as an example of at least one function residents can expect to be prioritized.
"We've aggressively worked over the last several years to develop what I think is one of the best websites of any municipality in New York State or perhaps even in this country,” Dunning said of his town’s website that is growing in popularity.
