(JTA) – The websites of several congregations hosted by the Union for Reform Judaism were hacked and linked to anti-Semitic websites.
Following the weekend hacking, the URJ pulled down the websites for scanning and clean-up, according to Mark Pelavin, the URJ’s senior advisor to the president.
In an e-mail to JTA, Pelavin said the sites were set to be brought back online by Monday evening, adding that URJ made some changes to its security protocol.
The hackers appear to be a group calling itself Moroccan Ghosts, according to Jeffrey Salkin, the Anti-Defamation League’s New Jersey community director.
Since March, Moroccan Ghosts has hacked some 82 websites, mostly in the United States, but also in France, Britain, Vietnam, South Africa, Germany, Spain and China, the ADL said. The Facebook page of Moroccan Ghosts includes graphics reading "Free Palestine," as well as an Israeli flag ripped in half and on fire.
A member of the group, a 17-year-old hacker from Morocco who calls himself King Neco, in an interview from over the summer with Eduard Kovacs on the Softpedia website, identified as part of the organization’s objectives "Defending Palestine and Jerusalem ‘al Qods.’ "
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