Website for N.S. business development agency taken down over unusual activity

HALIFAX – A Crown-owned business development agency has shut down its website after finding evidence of unusual activity that redirected visitors to porn sites.

Shawn Hirtle, spokesman for Nova Scotia Business Inc., told Global News late Thursday that cached web pages on Google appearing to be from the provincial website were found redirecting visitors to the pornography websites.

Cached pages are snapshots of web pages from a particular time. Some of the cached pages include what appear to be poorly translated articles about sex.

Hirtle said the pages that were accessible before the site was taken down didn’t contain the content, but their cached counterparts do.

“The NSBI website is home to information for public consumption, and we have not found any evidence of impacts affecting our clients,” he said in a statement.

“We are working to securely restore the NSBI website to the public.”

The statement says the agency “found evidence of IP addresses that seem to originate in the U.S., Russia and Hong Kong, which have been active on NSBI’s website.”

Hirtle said an investigation has been started and that no personal information is kept on the website.

(Global News)