PNP website overwhelmed

MANILA, Philippines - The main website of the Philippine National Police (PNP) was shut down yesterday morning by an attack of so-called “hactivists” from various countries who logged into the website at the same time, causing it to become inaccessible. 

The cyber technology division of the PNP was placed on high alert yesterday morning on suspicions of a cyber attack on its websites.

The official police website “http://www.pnp.gov.ph” www.pnp.gov.ph became inaccessible yesterday afternoon.   

Chief Inspector Felizardo Eubra of the Web Services and Cyber Technology Division, the anti-hacking unit of the Directorate for Information and Communications Technology Management (DICTM), said initial tracing of the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses showed that users from various countries

logged onto the website simultaneously.

Eubra said it is likely that the hactivists coordinated to bog down the main website. He has issued a warning to other PNP units maintaining the other police websites.

Almost immediately after the resolution of the bloody hostage-taking crisis in Rizal Park that resulted in the death of eight Hong Kong tourists and the hostage taker last Monday, the official email address of the PNP was flooded with angry messages, mostly from Hong Kong denouncing the mishandling of the crisis.

Eubra said the barrage of angry email was followed by an email threatening to deface and then shut down all of the PNP’s websites. He said they are now tracing the origin of the threatening email.