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Electronic Jihad? USC College Republican’s website hacked

When USC College Republicans President Jennifer Massey checked her group’s website recently, she was met with a shocking surprise.

Instead of a smiling face of President Ronald Reagan greeting her – the page’s usual intro – she was met with a black screen, a shady picture of a man in a fedora shrouded in darkness, a message in English telling her the website had been “hacked,” and a poem written in Arabic.

“It was frightening,” she said.

Then, making matters worse, one of her members translated the poem, which read: “I saw four things on the internet: A victim that was in torture, Martyrdom of great people I admire, achievements I am proud of, and donkeys (ignorant people) who portray themselves as if they understand everything.”

The College Republicans quickly restored the website and filed a report with law enforcement, which is still looking into “who this guy is,” Massey said, adding it’s believed the hacker must be some sort of Muslim extremist based on the poem’s message of admiring “martyrs.”

It’s a tough chapter in her group’s history, Massey adds.

“It’s troubling to be targeted like that,” she said of the mid-October incident.

But the USC College Republicans are not alone.

The Daily Mail reports that a rugby team in the UK had their website hacked earlier this month, with their regular screen replaced with the message “I love you ISIS.” Kirk Cameron’s website for his new movie “Saving Christmas” was also hacked twice by a Turkish Islamic group. A Florida-based Jewish Temple’s website was also recently hacked during Sukkot in October, apparently by the same “I love you ISIS” group that hit the UK rugby team.

And a Hil­lel group in Long Beach, Cal­i­f., had their website hacked in late October by an apparent Tunisian hacker who redirected visitors to “a page featuring a song about the tenets of Islam­,” the Anti-Defamation League reports.

The league has taken to calling some of these attacks “electronic jihad.”

“While past hack­ing efforts against Jew­ish institutions have focused on the Israeli Pales­tin­ian conflict, more recent attacks against Jew­ish and non-Jewish targets are being carried out in the name of ISIS,” ADL reports.

Jennifer Kabbany is editor of The College Fix.

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IMAGE: Screenshot of USC College Republicans’ hacked website

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About the Author
Fix Editor
Jennifer Kabbany is editor-in-chief of The College Fix.