East Lothian Council distances itself from museum website promoting hardcore porn content

East Lothian Council has distanced itself from a website promoting museums and visitor attractions in the area after hackers target it and advertise links to porn sites.

The website has no affiliation to East Lothian Council but promotes a range of tourist attractions across the region, the majority of which are council run.

The hack has impacted the homepage of the East Lothian Museums site, and threatens to take users to pornographic content through three separate links, with one – named “Pure Taboo” – misleading people to believe it is part of a museum attraction.

Initial inquiries by the council into the origins of the website suggest that it could be hosted from anywhere in the world, but it looks to have been “abandoned”, leaving it open to attacks from hackers such as this one.

One holiday maker who noticed the risky links, named Jeff, said: "We are coming on holiday next month to visit and stay in Edinburgh and parts of East Lothian and I was particularly interested in something I believed the museum could offer.

"I looked on the East Lothians Museums website and saw some things that shocked and surprised me."

He added: "I telephoned the museum service and alerted her to what was on their website. She was quite shocked and surprised herself.

"However she was more than friendly and was able to give me a lot more information about what we were looking for and as a result we are going to be staying for an extra couple of days."

East Lothian Council has distanced itself from a website promoting museums and visitor attractions in the area after hackers advertise links to porn sites.

A spokesperson from East Lothian Council said: “East Lothian Council is aware of this site which details information on a range of museums and related visitor attractions across the county.

"It is not linked to or connected with East Lothian Council and our museums service or uses the council branding style or logo. Anyone connecting to this site will see a security warning which indicates that continued use of the site may cause problems to the user.

“Our initial enquiries have indicated that this site can be hosted from anywhere in the world but it appears possibly to have been 'abandoned' and then hacked into at a later date.”

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