De Lima orders NBI to go after hackers who defaced govt websites

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to pursue the hackers who defaced government websites Wednesday in an apparent show of defiance to Republic Act 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The directive came hours after the supposed hackers broke into and defaced the official websites of the Official Gazette (www.gov.ph), the Senate (www.senate.gov.ph) and the House of Representatives (www.congress.gov.ph). "[I have ordered the NBI to] trace who the hackers are and apprehend them," De Lima told reporters in a text message. "For this purpose, they need to coordinate with the intelligence units of other investigative bodies." The NBI has an Anti-fraud and Computer Crimes unit, which investigates cybercrimes. Netizens who earlier in the day visited the Senate’s website were greeted with a message that said their connection had been cancelled, while those who visited the House of Representatives’ website received a "bad gateway" error message. The Official Gazette’s website, meanwhile, displayed the message: "F*** the Cyber Crime Law." The government websites have since been restored to their original status. As of 9:30 a.m., a group named "XPsych0path" claimed to have disabled 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's website were greeted with the message, "Error establishing a database connection." The website of concessionaire Manila Water was also 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, Private X, the group that owed up to the hacking, posted on its Twitter account a URL of a site which it supposedly uses to perform a "denial of service" (DoS) assault on the websites. — Mark D. Merueñas/KBK, GMA News