Early Sunday morning in Manila a flood of strange – some sexual in tone – messages flooded one of the leading news networks websites in social networking platforms.
More mesages flooded thier system after the ‘White hacker’ who called themselves ‘D4RKB1T’ posted the information to log-onto the twitter site of the networkonline.
This was followed by a stream of tweets that were obscene. GMA News SVP Marisa Flores at around 1:45am responded to an email that her staff was dealing with the problem.
GMANews.tv was affectd. But with a redirect to google, then a small window claiming the site had been hacked by ‘darkbit’ was posted.
GMANews.tv has, along with its news channel 11 and TV Channel 7 been leading the tight three way ratings race in the Philippines. It’s website GMANews.tv is one of the Asia Pacific regions leading websites with several million users per day.
MikeinManila.com noted the attack at a little after midnight. A stream of sexual in tone messages came out of the networks twitter account followed quickly by series of strange facebook posts.
The attack then shifted to the main network site.
GMA News had been hit by a attack a day after it reported on errors; security experts feel the attack may have come from a group or person who wanted to prove a point – or could have been a disgruntled employee.
“Feel ko the way they entered the system” a web security systems analyst says, “could be by tools used to share articles or stories.”
“It is thru social engineering” says Web Developer Edison Go Tan of Coreteqnique Systems.
"It is thru social engineering" says Web Developer Edison Go Tan of Coreteqnique Systems,
In times of disaster and emergency these site are often some of the best sources of news and information. In the tragic floods caused by Typhoon Onday and Pepeng – tweets and facebook posts are credited with rescues and saving lives. Had the hacker wanted to sow confusion or real harm he could have posted false information during a disaster.
So it seems however strange his ways – hacker – ‘D4RKB1T’, picked a lean time online to strike – one small condolence for GMA7. The time of night is often ‘low viewer time’ online.
NBI Cybercrime unit to investigate:
Sources inside the national bureau of investigation have confirmed that they monitored the ‘white hack event’ and while no one commented officially. The NBI, is ‘looking into the incident.’ – a senior Philippine DOJ official says that while no apparent harm came – should GMA network need the NBI or DOJ they will respond.
Hacking is defined under Philippine law as a violation of Republic Act 8792
Hacking or cracking, refers to unauthorized access including the introduction of computer viruses, is punishable by a fine from 100 thousand to maximum commensurating to the damage. With imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years. (section 33 / RA 8792 E-commerce law) Republic Act 8792
For web security people like Edison Tan, a web developer while he feels that social engineering tools for social networks may have been the hackers’ entry point into the websites servers. He is also concerned "This may be the start of something, last nights event was a first – and lets hope last attack."
Several other web security people noted that GMA News is not alone in the risk. Over the last few years several major websites have been targeted in hi-jack and hack attacks in the Philippines. Prosecution is swift but few have been convicted for the acts.