Hackers asked to spare disaster risk operations
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- Published on Friday, 05 October 2012 00:00
By A Web design Company
NATIONAL Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council executive officer Benito Ramos yesterday appealed to hackers to spare their website (www.ndrrmc.gov.ph).
“We are saving lives and properties,” Ramos said.
“This (NDRRMC website) is very important. If this is downed, if this is hacked, our information dissemination will be affected. Imagine, 93 million Filipinos getting affected. It is not only us who will be affected, but also the hackers themselves,” he said.
“When there is typhoon, even you (hackers) might drown if you do not know the status of weather,” he said in jest.
Ramos said the website has firewalls but said these may not be enough against determined hackers.
Ramos said the website has been hacked at least three times since 2010.
Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said the website of the Office of the President (www.president.gov.ph) had a scheduled system maintenance check on Wednesday in light of the hacking and defacing of government websites.
“We continue to adopt appropriate security measures to ensure the integrity of our websites,” he said.
Coloma said system maintenance check lasted for about five hours Wednesday morning but during that period, President Aquino’s Facebook fans and Twitter followers were duly re-directed and able to use these social media channels without any interruption.
He denied that the Philippine Information Agency website (ww.pia.gov.ph) was hacked or any actual defacement or service disruption occurred.
He said that last Tuesday, however, a supposed hacker “got into the personal email account of one of the online editors and inserted a link that appeared in one of the posted stories” which he said was immediately addressed by the PIA.
Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle has found himself a victim of hacking after a statement was posted on his supposed Facebook account early this week that he is in favor of the Cybercrime Law.
Peachy Yamsuan, communications director of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila (RCAM), said the statement was not of Archbishop Tagle.
“Please be informed that Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle does not have an FB account,” she said.
She said Archbishop Tagle only has a fan page in Facebook where the administrator is Jesuit Communications and can be accessed through www.facebook.com/ArchbishopTagle. – Victor Reyes, Jocelyn Montemayor and Gerard Naval
