HACKERS STRIKE GOV’T WEBSITES

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, January 22, 2015

The official government website - www.ghana.gov.gh - where information on Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as other government business can be obtained via the internet has been hacked.

Hackers in the internet world are people who have proficiency in using programming skills to gain illegal access to a computer network or file and post unwanted stuff, sometimes including pornography.

As at press time yesterday, Government says its IT experts have regained control of almost all the websites hacked. A Deputy Communications Minister, Ato Sarpong said on Citi Fm that they are 90 percent through to restoring the various websites.

 “I can confirm that yes, we have regained control of our sites. We had to pull the web server down ourselves and as a result of that, all sites that are linked to the web server will be down,” he said.

Felix Kwakye Ofosu, also deputy Minister of Communications had confirmed to various media that the website indeed was hacked but said they were working hard to clean the system. He said the hackers who took control of government official website, www.ghana.gov.gh are from Turkey.

The Alsancak Tim hackers took down the website in the early hours of Wednesday January 21, 2015 after hacking the sites of some state institutions including the Communication Ministry
and Scholarship Secretariat.

The incident can be interpreted to mean that the government portal is currently controlled by unknown person(s) and as a result, Ghana’s partners both local and international might not be able to not have any means of accessing official information about the country. 

“It is true…our attention was drawn to it earlier this morning,” the Deputy Minister confirmed, adding “It is not a desirable development at all… because on a daily basis, people go to that website for information on developments in the country.”

“The challenge for us as government is to make sure we tighten the security protocols to ensure this does not happen again,” he said.

MDAs most affected included Ministries of Communication, Local Government, Trade, Foreign Affairs, Tourism and Water Resources Works and Housing.

The rest are the Ghana Navy, the Scholarship Secretariat, Restored Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA).

The government’s electronic portal is reportedly managed by the Information Services Department (ISD) with assistance from the National Information Technology Agency (NITA).

Controllers have been battling internet hacking for many years. Just last week social network platforms Twitter and You Tube accounts of the United States Military were hacked by Islamic fundamentalists who are fighting to form an Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East.

They posted what looked like Jihadist messages but US Central Command (CENTCOM), one of nine unified commands in the United States military later issued a statement saying it was "cyber-vandalism".

A  cyber analyst, Albert Antwi Bosiako proposed on Citi FM it was time for the government to develops a cyber security culture to avert future attacks.

He advised that in order for the nation to guarantee security, “we need to be proactive in our security thinking. We don’t have to sit down for hacking to take place before we even think of putting any mechanism in place.”

According to him, security is a continuous process therefore; vulnerability assessments must be periodically undertaken. “These guys exploit the vulnerability of the technology which has been used to develop the website so we have to be constantly, proactively protect the website,” be “We must look at it from the perspective of the criminal or the hackers for us to identify whatever issues and resolve them because issue will always come up that is why one cannot prevent hacking,” he added.