Last week council bosses in Staffordshire were baffled when hackers took over Burton’s traffic management screens and now the hunt is on to find out who was behind the cyberattack.

Apparently, the council has asked for help from the Highways Agency to find out who was behind the messages on the board which read:

“Go back to Swad you idiots. We are supposed to be in lockdown!”

Wait, the next message is beautiful – following a complaint from a Karen Banks, who posted photos of the sign to the Burton Life Facebook group, calling it “100% unacceptable”, the hacker then changed the signs to read

“Do you want to speak to a manager Karen?”.

I know, I know, it’s a teeny bit illegal and not particularly PC – but I saw you laugh out loud…I did a bit too!

Speaking about the incident, a local hacker by the name of W1nsh1ll_Ph33rl0rd told Burton News:

“Basically, it’s all pretty easy to do, it doesn’t matter whether the council think the board is turned on when you can do it yourself just by having a lamp post key and a laptop.”

“I’ve not tried it with road signs before but I’ve done it with the bus stop signs.”

Although the hack has raised eyebrows, some social media users praised the person responsible via a local facebook group, suggesting they should be given a job at the council. 

Chloe Beth Mayne wrote:

“Not all heroes wear capes, some change street signs.”

Ruth Bowman added:

“I actually think it will do the highways a favour. The majority of people drive past these signs barely glancing at them…at least now people will be actually looking at them for messages, proposals etc lol.”

I mean 🤷‍♀️ Ruth does have a point!

To view more of our interesting, funny and local articles – click here.