Cops act to stop website hackers

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine National Police (PNP) has taken steps to guard against hacking and other breaches of computer security after 10 of its websites were hacked in June and September, officials said Thursday.

The PNP said it had created the “Technical Committee on Website Hacking and Other Related Incidents” headed by Senior Supt. Joel Victor V. Canapi, chief of the directorial staff of the PNP Information Technology Management Service, in response to the hacking incidents.

The committee studied the incidents of June and September, in which hackers disabled the user name and password functions on the websites of 10 police offices, PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr. said in a statement.

After the study, which was begun on Nov. 10, the committee recommended a careful review of the service level agreement with the websites’ host providers, “taking into consideration the inclusion of adequate security features,” Cruz said.

The panel also called for the continuous monitoring of the websites in order to preempt any more attempts to hack them, as well as the installation of security plug-ins or add-ons in the backup files and complementary security applications, the PNP officer said.

In June, 10 PNP websites were defaced, including those of the Highway Patrol Group, Police Security and Protection Group, Police Community Relations Group, Directorate for Human Resource and Doctrine Development, Headquarters Support Service, Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, and Police Regional Offices 9, 11 and 13.

Hackers who identified themselves as “Terroriste_Mc,” “Cocain Team” and “Cyb3r- DZ” disabled the user name and password functions of the websites’ back-end and front-end pages, investigation showed.

A similar incident occurred in September when the websites of PRO 9 and PRO 13 were defaced by “UrduHack Team” and “LatinHack Team,” Cruz said.

On corresponding with allied international organizations against cyber threats, the committee learned the hackers responsible for the June incidents were Turks, Iranians and Arabs, while those responsible for the September hacking were Pakistanis and South Americans.

The initial response of the web administrators of the hacked sites included the temporary stoppage of web service and the restoration of their backup files, Cruz said.

On Nov. 22-24, the web administrators underwent a seminar on the latest on security threats and how to defend their sites from cyber attack.