Dyer County Historical Society Web site defaced

The Dyer County Historical Society's Web site was hacked over the weekend and defaced with an Islamic screed, at top, before it was restored on Saturday. [Click to enlarge]

But quick thinking by amateur historian Glen Barr saved the information before the site was restored late Saturday.

Society president Danny Walden said he was frustrated the site was the subject of an attack.

"I am disappointed that the effort of so many local volunteers to establish and maintain the Dyer County Historical Society should be targeted by someone trying to disrupt our Web site," said Walden. "Much like the recent vandalism that was done in the East Court Cemetery, this damage can be repaired. This may slow us, but only a little bit. Efforts by hackers will not deter us from continuing to promote Dyer County to the citizens of the world."

The local takeover was evidently a spillover from attacks last week on European Web sites on the two-year anniversary of the publications of cartoons that featured Mohammed. The same image - the Islamic sword, the religion's traditional green color, and the phrase "There is no god but one god and his name is Allah" in Arabic.

Barr said he had tracked the hacking to a host server in Alabama.

Barr had copied the source code for the site and re-posted the information during the outage on his personal site, www.glenbar.net.