Portland restaurant’s phone system hacked, hateful statements left on outgoing message
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PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) — The Portland Police Bureau is investigating how someone hacked into a Portland restaurant’s phone system, changing the greeting to contain a hateful, anti-Semitic message.
Shalom Y’all has been in business for two years. Over the weekend, restaurant owners say their phones were hacked not once, but twice.
“I can only suspect because our name is Shalom Y’all, we serve food from a region that there’s a lot of complicated political and religious issues. But we’re here to serve food – we’re celebrating the food from the entire region,” restaurant co-owner Jamal Hassan told FOX 12.
On Saturday, their voicemail system was changed – staff believe remotely – to provide a charged, hateful message.
“Hi, you have reached the stupid Jewish restaurant…” the message starts.
The full message is too vulgar to transcribe.
Staff were quick to change their voicemail back, but on Sunday, it was changed again.
Hassan and staff are left wondering, who is targeting them, and why.
s has its share of challenges sometimes, but I typically don’t wake up in the morning and expect to receive threats and have our voicemail spreading hate speech, homophobia and anti-Semitism,” Hassan said.
Over the weekend, staff were informed not only had their voicemail been changed, their number had been used to call other area restaurants too. Police believe the number was ‘spoofed,’ a term used to describe when an incoming phone call appears to be from a legitimate number.
In this case, police say two other restaurants received hateful calls from a number the same as Shalom Y’all.
While the restaurant believes they have put a stop to it by changing their passwords, they worry whoever did this is capable of doing it again.
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