The Carbon County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, along with the sheriff’s own page, were both hacked Friday at about noon, the sheriff reports.
Sherif Alex Bakken started receiving numerous email notifications at about noon Friday, alerting him that someone was trying to access his Facebook page — and the official sheriff’s page it controls — with differing verification codes.
Then when sheriff’s office personnel tried to log into the official page, they realized they no longer have access to it and all the credentials had been changed, Bakken told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday phone interview.
As of 7 p.m., the hacker hadn’t posted anything.
The last post the sheriff’s page made was March 18, featuring a Cowboy State Daily story about a huge ammunition bust involving a suspected illegal immigrant on Interstate 80.
There’s no telling so far if the account has been messaging people.
Bakken said he’s reached out to Facebook, but the platform is “not communicating at all” so far.
“Just, trying to get ahead of it before anyone gets the wrong idea and thinks they’re communicating with the sheriff’s office, when they’re really not,” said Bakken.
Until further notice, he said, people should consider the page’s activities illegitimate. He asks Facebook users to report them both as fraudulent.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
