Officials: Salinas City Website Hacked

If you have attempted to go to the city of Salinas’ website recently, you’ve probably been redirected to another site.

Central Coast News did a quick Google search for the city of Salinas. Then clicked to go to the city’s page. Instead of options for city services, you get an offer for 40 percent off cozy boots. The page is bootsus.org.

“There it is, Ugg boots’,” said Councilwoman, Jyl Lutes.

Lutes said she noticed it almost three months ago when she tried to print out a City Council agenda.

“So frustrating. So that’s it, that’s the city of Salinas website,” said Lutes.

Central Coast News spoke to Mayor Joe Gunter, who said, the city is not advertising Ugg Boots, but the website has been hacked. He’s not sure how, but said the city’s IT department has been working to get it fixed.

“It looked like a search engine spam,” said our Central Coast News’ Assistant Tech Administrator Grant Garbowitz.

Garbowitz took a look at the damage.

“In this case it looks like there was some malicious code inserted in the website that redirects any visitor,” said Garbowitz.

If you type in the city page address directly on your browser, it will go to the correct website. It only happens if you go through Google.

Garbowitz said that’s because its coded that way and said it’s not easy to fix and can come back if changed.

“Hopefully Monday it will be all solved and resolved and fixed,” said Lutes.