Who hacked the Government website?

Was the entity that recently breached the security of the Government of SVG’s website also responsible for the hacking of Irish Autism Action’s website last month, or was the www.gov.vc hacker just an opportunistic hacker, a copycat or mischief maker?

According to an online article published by the Irish Independent on April 8, 2015, the Irish charity’s website was compromised by individuals claiming to be Islamic State Hackers – the same pseudonym used by the person(s) responsible for the digital attack on our Government’s website.{{more}}

The homepage of AutismIreland.ie was hijacked to show a photograph of a masked soldier dressed in black and brandishing an automatic weapon, alongside the words “Islamic State Hackers” and “Hacked By Moroccanwolf and ABdellah elmaghribi.”

The image appeared on the charity’s website for approximately six hours before being removed successfully. Users were not able to access the homepage during that time, but the rest of the site was available through Google search.

Despite the similarity between the two cases, some persons have expressed skepticism that the site was hacked by persons acting on behalf of Islamic State (ISIS).

“What interest is SVG to ISIS?” one commentator asked. Other persons told SEARCHLIGHT that they feel the breach of the Government’s website was done by mischief makers here in SVG or by people overseas with ties to SVG.

Others have opined that the website was compromised by international hackers, who use automated crawlers to identify websites on the Internet with known weaknesses.