Hackers took control of the five news websites of Embarcadero Media Group on Thursday night, according to the media outlet.

The websites of Palo Alto Weekly, The Almanac, Mountain View Voice and Pleasanton Weekly were all reportedly attacked at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday. The company temporarily took the websites offline and it is distributing news content through its social media platforms.

Work is being performed to restore the websites, the company's officials said. As of 3 p.m. today, the websites were still down.

After being hacked, the websites featured a message and an image of Guy Fawkes, a symbol typically associated with the hacker group Anonymous. The message explained that the company, "failed to remove content that has been harmful to the well-being and safety of others," warning that, "failure to honor all requests to remove content will lead to the permanent shutdown of all Embarcadero Media Group websites." It ended with the presumed slogan of Anonymous: "We do not forgive, we do not forget, we are legion."

But Bill Johnson, the company's president and CEO, said the message didn't point to any specific article or information. Thus, he said he wasn't sure of its significance.

Palo Alto Police Department is investigating the incident.