The website of Maine Public Broadcasting Network was compromised Wednesday, redirecting users to an unfamiliar Web search tool.

Gil Maxwell, the public broadcaster’s vice president and chief technology officer, said no subscriber data or personal information were compromised in the hack.

The breach came as the station’s news and broadcast staff were focused on a telecast and live-stream of Gov. Paul LePage’s inauguration ceremony in Augusta. Maxwell said the breach has not affected the television broadcast.

The breach occurred about 3:28 a.m., when an unknown entity broke the passwords used to manage the site’s domain name, which is registered through godaddy.com, a Web hosting company and Internet domain registrar.

The hackers then changed the passwords to access the site’s domain information.

On Wednesday, visitors to the site, www.mpbn.net, instead of seeing information about the network’s news reports and programming, are being forwarded to a rudimentary search tool that is populated with advertisements.

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“As soon as we found out this morning, we called GoDaddy, and we confirmed to them who we are, but unfortunately it takes time to get through their system,” Maxwell said.

“We can only speculate what happened. The (MPBN) sites are protected by passwords and PIN numbers. People like to break into these sites and commandeer them.”

Maxwell said GoDaddy is working on the problem, but has no firm timeline on when the site will be restored.

This story will be updated.

Staff Writer Matt Byrne can be reached at 791-6303, or at:

mbyrne@pressherald.com

Twitter: MattByrnePPH


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