Nearly 8 hours after cyber hackers attacked Ghana government’s websites, the state’s IT experts are still battling to restore any of the 10 websites that were attacked.
A Deputy Minister of Information Ato Sarpong in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show was hopeful that the websites would be restored in two hours, but that has not happened yet.
In what seems like a well orchestrated plan, cyber hackers have launched attacks on the websites of several key government agencies including the Government of Ghana, Ministries of Communication, Local Government, Trade, Foreign Affairs, Tourism and Water Resources Works and Housing.
[contextly_sidebar id=”TSXtsHcteRhOdu0qPlNwsWjzLw7ooZ9F”]The others are; the Ghana Navy, the Scholarship Secretariat, Restored Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA).
In 2012, the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Department’s website – www.Mojag.gov.gh was also hijacked by hackers sympathetic to Argentina, which had its military vessels, the Libertade Frigate “seized” by a Ghanaian court.
In December last year, the University of Cape Coast website was also hacked and restored later.
The website was said to have been hacked by one Mr. Bangladesh.
It is unclear what is motivating the hackers or how much data they might have stolen. Deputy Communications Minister, Ato Sarpong in an earlier interview with Citi News said government’s IT officials are working to restore the hacked Government of Ghana website.
Meanwhile, a cyber analyst, Albert Antwi Bosiako is proposing Ghana develops a cyber security culture to avert future attacks.
He advised that in order for the nation to guarantee security, “we need to be proactive in our security thinking. We don’t have to sit down for hacking to take place before we even think of putting any mechanism in place.”
According to him, security is a continuous process therefore; vulnerability assessments must be periodically undertaken.
“These guys exploit the vulnerability of the technology which has been used to develop the website so we have to be constantly, proactively protect the website,” be
“We must look at it from the perspective of the criminal or the hackers for us to identify whatever issues and resolve them because issue will always come up that is why one cannot prevent hacking,” he added.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan