SACRAMENTO -- A hacker who directed people from a county website to pornography triggered a federal shutdown of state government Internet and e-mail service late Tuesday afternoon, according to a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The state system, which uses the domain name "ca.gov," was never hacked and all of its websites and e-mail should be functioning within a few hours, spokesman Aaron McLear said.
He said the federal government moved to suspend the state's Internet and e-mail service after someone hacked into a county website that contained the domain name ca.gov and redirected people to a pornography site. McLear said he did not know which county website was hacked.
The unauthorized diversion of Internet traffic to pornography raised a red flag for federal regulators, who moved to shut down the entire ca.gov domain until California officials prevailed upon them to reverse the suspension, according to McLear.
No essential state services were compromised, he said.
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