Iloilo City LGU's website hacked

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — Regular online visitors of the www.iloilocity.gov.ph, website of the Iloilo City government, were stunned yesterday upon reading the message, "This account has been suspended," on their computers' screens.

The LGU's website was hacked and it was Bombo Radyo-Iloilo that first discovered it as it tried to open it early morning yesterday.

Bombo Radyo, in its report later, said that when it opened the website, all it saw was the notice that says it is hacked and the codes that read #Pr3H4ck3r & Synd1c4t3. Under it, was a message that says they are against the people that are running the government.

The hackers also appealed to the government to resolve the pressing issues that beset the country today, especially the "pork barrel scam."

The alleged grave misuse of the priority development assistance fund or pork barrel of lawmakers and other government officials, recently hugged the headlines after a lawyer whistleblower made a revelation that several senator and congressmen made their PDAF allocations available to Janet Lim Napoles.

Napoles was tagged as the mastermind of a P10-billion pork barrel scam involving ghost projects allegedly used for kickbacks by lawmakers.

The hackers also placed at the end of their message, greetings from Anonymous Philippine Cyber Army, Pinoy Vendetta and "1337 of Madleets."

City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog told The Freeman that he was deeply saddened by the hacking incident. He said that hackers might have chosen to hit the city's website because they knew it has a number of regular visitors and caters to bigger audience.

Iloilo is one of the fastest growing and major performing cities of the country and many are interested to know about it, he said, adding that the city will be asking for help from the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation to trace the perpetrators and made them liable for the hacking. (FREEMAN)