Opinion: Some U.S. Treasury websites hacked, taken offline

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You might want to think twice about visiting the U.S. Treasury Department’s websites -- not that you would anyway.

Several government sites were compromised, administrators learned on Monday, and the administrators are still working to remedy the problems.

Four domains associated with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were hit by a malicious attack. As a result, a bug on the site would attempt to infect visitors’ PCs.

A bureau representative says the sites affected are BEP.gov, BEP.treas.gov, MoneyFactory.gov and MoneyFactory.com.

Since the intrusion, the sites have been taken offline, wrote bureau spokeswoman Claudia Dickens in an e-mail. Instead of an explanation when loading those pages, visitors simply see a ‘page not found’ error.

‘Through discussions with the provider [that hosts the websites’ servers], BEP is aware of the remediation steps required to restore the site and is currently working toward resolution,’ Dickens wrote.

If you’ve visited any of the four ailing sites in the last couple days, you may want to get your computer checked.

-- Mark Milian

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