[UPDATED] Hackers take down Carmel city website

UPDATE: As of 9:30 p.m. Friday night the website for the City of Carmel was back online. According the City of Carmel, “Changes have been made to avoid a similar disruption in the future. The server that holds the website is not the same server that city uses for its business, so there was never a chance that any city information was breached. We appreciate the patience of the public during this repair process.”

The City of Carmel’s website was down Friday morning after being hacked.

According to the Reporter’s newsgathering partners at WISH-TV, the website “was displaying a message that it had been hacked by Iranian hackers.”

Late Friday afternoon, the City of Carmel provided this update to the Reporter on the status of the City’s website:

“The City of Carmel continues to work on its disrupted city website, which remains offline. Our IT professionals are working on making repairs and restoring the website and we hope to have the website back online as soon as possible.

“The investigation into how this happened is still ongoing. However, we want to clarify that there was no private information compromised. Carmel’s city website only contains public information. Transactions such as paying a city utility bill are done on third-party websites, which were not impacted by today’s disruption.

“City services continued to remain open on Friday and those who needed specific services were asked to call that department or the main line into City Hall.

“We will continue to update you as things change.”

As of press time Friday, the City’s website remains down.