AUGUSTA, Maine - Maine.gov, the website of the state of Maine, was attacked earlier today by what computer experts call a "denial of service" attack.
The servers at the website, operated by InForMe, a public-private partnership created by the Legislature, were flooded with messages denying access to the website by anyone.
Secretary of State Matt Dunlap says he has been assured the attackers never got by the firewalls and into state systems.
"No data bases were breached, no personal information was lost or compromised in any way," Dunlap says. "It was a denial of service attack; typically they flood the server with spam."
Dunlap serves on the InForMe board, and has served as chair of the group. Neither he nor other state officials would confirm published reports that the attack came from a Russian-based group.
The attack disabled the state's website briefly. It is now back online. New Hampshire's tourism website was also inaccessible for a time on Monday due to a cyberattack against an outside server. That outage lasted for less than an hour, according to The Associated Press.
