There's a bad reason why this week's Powell Tribune stories are not up on powelltribune.com -- our site was apparently hacked over the weekend.
We're working to fix the problem.
We had been having trouble with our site since Monday, but it wasn't until today that we learned the problem wasn't just a technical glitch.
As a Google search for "Powell Tribune viagra" reveals, some spam pages were added to our site to promote websites hawking certain types of pharmaceuticals. We apologize to anyone who has clicked through to one of these sites while following what they thought was a powelltribune.com link.
There's no reason to think the hacking had anything to do with any of our news content or that there was any particular reason for the timing. It appears the Tribune's site was vulnerable, and someone just happened to take advantage of that vulnerability. It happens relatively often on the Internet.
We've seen no evidence that any of the stories currently on our site have been manipulated in any way to spread misinformation. You can feel free to continue browsing old stories on powelltribune.com as the added web pages promoting the pharmaceuticals are not accessible by clicking around on the site; that's partially why it took us so long to figure out we'd been hacked.
The Tribune blog you're currently reading is hosted on completely different servers with a wholly separate interface and is not affected. Similarly, folks with an electronic subscription to the Tribune can continue to log in and read our latest issues without interruption. We're also confident that our print edition currently on newsstands remains 100 percent hack-proof.
We are currently working to relaunch the Tribune website, but do not have a timeline as to when things will be back to normal.
We're sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these issues. We'll keep you posted.
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