Nat Sec sites still down after Brazilian hack attack

National Security Minister Stuart Young.
National Security Minister Stuart Young.

MORE than a week after 11 government websites were attacked by Brazilian anti-government hackers, two national security sites remained down.

On July 25 the TT Computer Society (TTCS) flagged the hacking of the sites by Brazilian hacker or hackers VandatheGod in a series of posts,.

National Security Minister Stuart Young, at the post-Cabinet media conference that day, confirmed his ministry's and theimmigration division's websites had both been hacked, but said no real damage had been done. He said investigations had been launched to identify the source of the hacking and the sites shut down until the ministry could secure them and understand what happened.

The sites of the Immigration Division, immigration.gov.tt, and Citizen Security Programme, csp.gov.tt, remained unavailable up to yesterday while the national security website, nationalsecurity.gov.tt, was back up and running last week. National Security Ministry Permanent Secretary Vel Lewis told Newsday briefly he was not in office but the ministry's computer response team was working on the issue.

TTCS also reported attacks on the websites associated with the Tourism Ministry, Office of the Prime Minister Gender Affairs Division, National Energy, Energy Ministry, Office of the Attorney General, Telecommunications Authority (TATT) and the National Entrepreneurship Development Company (Nedco).

The TATT site was previously unavailable but was available yesterday while Nedco's site remained "temporarily down for maintenance." Newsday had sent Nedco an e-mail asking if the site's being down was due to the hack, but no response had yet been received.

VandatheGod, who has been on Twitter since January 2013 and has 2,193 followers, claimed responsibility for the hacks and retweeted a video by TTT Online with Young speaking about the hacking and also one of the posts by TTCS.

On the National Security Ministry website the hackers posted a YouTube link to to the 1995 song Pela­dos em San­tos by Brazil­ian com­e­dy rock band Ma­monas As­sas­si­nas.

The hackers later attacked other websites and posted an image of a man wearing the Guy Fawkes mask of Anonymous followers and holding a sign reading: "Join the Revolution, Tell Your Corrupt Government to F--- Off".

Last week the news site courier-tribune.com reported the hackers had attacked the website of Randolph County, North Carolina, US and at least 59 other government sites have been targeted in the past week.

Up to yesterday, VandatheGod continued to post links to hacked sites, including those associated with the mountainous Marche region in Italy, the city of Tyler in Texas, US and sites linked to Jamaica, the UK and China.

TTCS assistant secretary Dev Anand Teelucksingh had previously told Newsday websites need to be secure to prevent unauthorised parties from interfering with them. He also described VandatheGod as a "cookie-cutter operation," saying it probably all automated.

Young could not be reached for comment.

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"Nat Sec sites still down after Brazilian hack attack"

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