Team System Dz

Profile narrative

Team System Dz, also known as Team System DZ, is an Algeria‑based hacking group that has publicly aligned itself with pro‑Islamic State propaganda. The actors identify themselves with the moniker “Team System Dz” in claim messages and have been described in open sources as an Algerian hacking team. Their activity is primarily characterized by website defacements that replace legitimate content with extremist imagery and messages, rather than by financial theft or espionage.

The group’s targeting pattern shows a focus on public‑sector and educational institutions in North America and occasional incursions into the United Kingdom. They have compromised police department websites such as the Prince Albert Police Service in Canada, numerous school district sites hosted by SchoolDesk in the United States, and multiple government portals in Richland County, Wisconsin. Additional victims include the University of Toronto, the Isle of Wight website in Virginia, and various county departments such as Veterans Services, Emergency Management, Health and Human Services, and Parks Commission. Their strategic objective, as expressed in the defacement content, appears to be the dissemination of ISIS‑aligned propaganda and the disruption of online services, as evidenced by the temporary takedown of defaced sites and the inclusion of threatening messages about an impending ISIS takeover.

Their tactics, techniques and procedures are limited to web‑based defacement and the injection of malicious files that redirect visitors to an iFramed YouTube page containing Arabic audio, unknown writing, and images such as a photograph of Saddam Hussein. The defacement pages consistently display the ISIS logo, Arabic religious text that mirrors the ISIS flag (“There is no god but Allah” and “Mohammed is the Messenger of God”), and English statements like “I love Islamic State” or more elaborate slogans such as “#Op USA | Ir | il | Ru | Fr | I love you Islamic State & Jihad Islamic State remain and expand, God willing, We will restore the dignity of Muslims Glory will return to Islam The dispute will return to outdated Be prepared.” In some incidents they also posted messages like “Fuck israel & France je suis mohamed je suis ISIS” and embedded looping audio tracks. The intrusion vector observed in the SchoolDesk incident involved uploading a small file to the web root that redirected traffic to the propaganda‑laden YouTube frame, indicating a reliance on file‑upload or remote code execution flaws rather than sophisticated malware families.

Notable operations attributed to Team System Dz include the November 2023 defacement of the Prince Albert Police Service website, which displayed a black screen with an “I love Islamic State” slogan and a looping audio track before being restored. In November 2017 they claimed responsibility for compromising roughly eight hundred U.S. school and district websites hosted by SchoolDesk, inserting a Saddam Hussein image, ISIS‑themed text, and a redirect to an iFramed YouTube page with Arabic audio. Throughout 2016 they repeatedly defaced multiple Richland County government websites—including the Sheriff’s Department, Emergency Management, Veterans Services, and other county portals—displaying ISIS logos and threatening messages, an activity they described as the third such breach within a year. Earlier actions cited in open sources involve the hacking of the University of Toronto and the Isle of Wight, Virginia website in 2015, as well as a June 2016 defacement of a Canadian food‑truck site bearing the phrase “I am Muslim and I love Jihad.” Additional mentions include the summer 2017 defacement of the Ohio Governor John Kasich homepage and various U.S. state and government sites. These episodes collectively illustrate a pattern of ideologically motivated website defacement aimed at spreading extremist propaganda and causing temporary online disruption.

Incidents

Attributed incidents are available to members.