Philippine gov't information website hacked

The Philippine Presidential Palace on Sunday alerted all government agencies to improve the security of their respective official websites following the hacking of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) website that day.

The PIA website was restored at around 7 p.m.

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Herminio Coloma said in a press statement that the Executive is implementing "best practices" to make government websites less vulnerable to hacking.

"We are alerting all government agencies to review and improve the security of their websites in view of the hacking of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) website this afternoon," Coloma said.

He said, however, that two other government websites--president. gov.ph and gov.ph--"remain secure."

Coloma, who is in charge of the PIA and the president.gov.ph website, assured the public that the government is "adopting best practices to lessen the vulnerability of our websites to hacking and other cyber crimes."

The cyber attack was made almost a week after the Manila hostage tragedy that led to the death of eight Hong Kong tourists, which has sparked public outrage in Hong Kong.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents joined in a massive rally to mourn the eight victims of last Monday's hostage crisis and demanded the Philippine authorities to conduct a comprehensive, thorough and impartial investigation as soon as possible.

Source: Xinhua