A South Florida journal had its website hacked and federal agents are now investigating.
"I had the hacker for my page "The Doral Family Journal." I had a big problem at this moment," said Ettore Sabatella, the owner of the site, who said from Spanish.
The west Miami-Dade website is the online version of the journal. Once the website was hacked, no one could get into it the paper’s site.
Sabatella went to Doral Police and now the U.S. Secret Service is investigating. But the shutdown stopped him from loading stories, and his advertisers from reaching his audience, which had a big impact on his core business.
Sabatella said from Spanish that he feels this is an organized effort and that the perpetrators will ask for money or they just want to damage the structure of his website.
An e-mail later came from a company offering assistance. Sabatella said the email originated from Russia, and it requested information on his paper. He believes he’s being extorted.
Sabatella thinks other companies could be targeted. He spending money to get a new webpage now.
For more information about the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force.
