Palace orders gov't agencies to review web security

Malacañang has ordered government agencies to review the security of their official websites after the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) website was hacked on Sunday. In a text message on Monday, Presidential Communications Operations head Sonny Coloma said Malacañang is tightening the security not only of the PIA website but also of the Office of the President's two other websites: www.president.gov.ph and www.gov.ph, the Official Gazette. On Sunday, Coloma said Malacañang is "alerting all government agencies to review and improve the security of their websites in view of hacking of the Philippine Information Agency." The PIA website was defaced by hackers Sunday afternoon to show only a small Chinese flag on its homepage. Aside from the Chinese flag with a black background, the words “Hacked by 7z1" and “Black Matrix team | 0x.oday@Gmail.com" could be seen in the government website as of 4:40 p.m. The website was taken down at 4:55 p.m., and was restored at around 7:00 p.m. Coloma said as of Monday, Malacanang has "no findings yet" on whether the hackers are from the Philippines or Hong Kong.

Relations between the governments of the Philippines and Hong Kong became tense after the August 23 hostage crisis in Manila where eight Hong Kong tourists were killed. The hostage-taker, dismissed Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza who was demanding to be reinstated into the service, was killed in the police's assault operations which was launched after Mendoza began firing at the hostages. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. In an ambush interview with reporters, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the nationalities of the hackers were "not relevant." Lacierda said the hacking only showed that the government needs to beef up the security of its websites which are vulnerable to hacking. Lacierda, however, said it would be very "irresponsible" if Filipinos were behind the hacking. "Kung sakali gawa ito ng mga Pilipino, napakairesponsable naman nila. Wag sana nilang gawin yun. Wag na po nilang i-escalate iyon (the tension) iyon, otherwise hopefully nagiging normal na atmosphere natin ngayon," he said. (If this was done by Filipinos, that was very irresponsible. I hope they didn't do that. They shouldn't escalate [the tension], otherwise, hopefully the atmosphere is normalizing now.) He noted that the protest rally in Hong Kong on Sunday, attended by thousands of Hong Kong Chinese, was "peaceful." An estimated 80,000 Hong Kong residents marched along the city’s streets around 3:00 p.m. on Sunday to express their anger over how the Philippine government, particularly police authorities, handled the hostage tragedy. Malacañang has ordered the departments of Justice and Interior and Local Government to conduct a thorough investigation of the incident. Vice-President Jejomar Binay will lead a high-level delegation of Philippine officials who will present the findings to Chinese officials once the probe is finished. –VVP, GMANews.TV