Hackers knock down president.gov.ph site, poke fun at RA 10175

Hackers continued to taunt authorities on the Cybercrime Prevention Act Wednesday morning, knocking down another high-level government site and inserting an image on a water concessionaire's site to poke fun at the controversial law. As of 9:30 a.m., a hacker or group named "XPsych0path" claimed to disable the Office of the President website (www.president.gov.ph). The hack was announced on the Facebook page of Anonymous #Philippine Cyber Army. Visitors to the Office of the President website were greeted with the error message, "Error establishing a database connection." Also, the website of concessionaire Manila Water was hacked, with a page containing an image of cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants.

"Republic Act No. 10175? Nobody cares," read the message. The hack was "announced" on the Facebook page of #pR.is0n3r, who claimed Anonymous Philippines was behind the attack. Earlier Wednesday, hackers rendered inaccessible some high-profile government websites, including those of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Senate and House websites appeared back to normal as of 9 a.m. Also, the Official Gazette website was the target of a denial of service (DoS) attack by Anonymous Philippines, which offered a tool that would direct a DoS attack on the site. — LBG, GMA News