Police website hacked
MANILA, Philippines—The website of the Police Community Relations Group (PCRG) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) was hacked Tuesday afternoon by a group of hackers who stated the recently passed Cybercrime Prevention Act as their reason for hacking the site.
The home page of the PCRG-PNP website showed a message saying the site was “Hacked by M4N1L4 PR1D3, PHILIPPINE CYBER ARMY AND -=TheFamilyPride=-.”
The hackers, in a link to another page, stated that they hacked the website to protest the enactment of the cybercrime law.
“The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is the most notorious act ever witnessed in the cyber-history of the Philippines, and the language of the bill is cunningly designed to make you think it only applies to individuals who are deep in cyber-technology and doesn’t apply to everyone, but some part of the bill basically says it can imprison anyone who commits libel either by written messages, comments, blogs, or posts in sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or any other comment-spaces of other social media in the Internet,” it said.
“It is just so disappointing that our government, in adopting our 80-year-old antiquated libel laws to the Cybercrime Law, again seems to have retarded our march with the rest of the world with respect to giving full force to the people’s freedom of expression,” it added.
The group, calling itself the “Philippine Cyber Army,” asked for a revision of the law and further warned the government to expect more hackings.
“We ask for a revision of the said bill for the betterment of the Filipino denizens. Protect our Right to Freedom of Expression! No to CyberCRIME! This is a message to the Philippines. Expect us!” it said.
The hackers also left a URL link and facebook page to them. “CONTACT: www.familypride.tk and www.facebook.com/thefamilypride.”
The hackers left a final message: “Expect the Unexpected.”
The website has been taken down as of 3:35 p.m. Tuesday.
The PCRG-PNP website was the latest of several government websites to be hacked in relation in protest of the cybercrime law.
On Monday night, a cyber-activist who goes by the name “Anonymous Philippines” defaced at least four government websites after a series of attacks the previous week.
