Official confirms city of Longview targeted by hackers

Longview’s website went offline briefly this weekend, likely due to cyber attacks. “The website did go down temporarily, but as far as we are aware nothing was compromised,” city spokesman Shawn Hara said. A YouTube poster who claimed to be part of hacktivist organization Anonymous took credit for the alleged attack. “We would like to say that we did shut down the Longview Texas city website, of course it’s back online, trust us when we say we wouldn’t have made this video if we knew the op wouldn’t be a success,” the poster, who goes by AnonSec 101, commented on a video uploaded Saturday. The poster said that site was down part of the Saturday evening, but that the city updated its security to make the attacks less successful. Despite being unable to continue the targeting, the poster said, the group made a statement. The attack claimed to be connected to the Thursday death of 17-year-old Kristiana Coignard, who entered the Longview Police Department’s Cotton Street station brandishing a weapon and was shot by officers. At the time of the YouTube post, a Facebook event “Justice for Kristiana Coignard” was made which called for protesters to gather from noon to midnight on Feb. 7 at the police station. The page was created Sunday night and the first post was a link to the YouTube video. The video also discusses the shooting. “We ask you Longview police department are you happy with the choice of how the actions taken be your officer? We ask you what kind of people you hire as a police officer that can't take a knife from a small 17 year old girl?” the poster wrote in the video description.