Hackers have targeted major Ghanaian news websites, as the coalition of media houses intensifies a campaign, for the ban of illegal mining commonly referred to as galamsey [gather and sell] in Ghana.
At least four major websites, Ghanaweb.com, Peacefmonline.com, Myjoyononline.com and Adomonline.com have come under attack in the last three weeks.
Multitvworld.com which is also under the Multimedia Group was also affected. These websites were un-accessible for some time during the period of the attacks.
Every day, various websites do get hundreds of attempted attacks that are considered normal by webmasters and expected, but not on a similar scale as the one currently being experienced by the news websites.
The Daily Graphic has gathered that the attacks mainly originated from hackers in China and that they were in the nature of distributed denial of service (DDoS).
What is DDoS
A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is an attack in which multiple compromised computer systems attack a target, such as a server, website or other network resource, and cause a denial of service for users of the targeted resource.
The hackers normally flood the targets with millions of messages, connection requests or malformed packets.
This forces the target to slow down or even crash and shut down, thereby denying service to legitimate users or systems. When this happens, legitimate users are unable to visit the target website.
Investigations ongoing
A number of the editors of the affected websites told the Daily Graphic that investigations were ongoing to ascertain the cause of the hacking.
“We are all gathering data. We have made a lot of progress and will officially file a complaint with National Security after our internal investigations.
“There appears to be a sponsored attack on the websites of the media houses. What usually happens is that others go down when hacked websites revive their operations,” a website editor noted.
Ghanaweb
In the case of Ghanaweb, the attack happened around Easter three weeks ago and the webmasters had to work around the clock to restore service after some days. Ghanaweb issued a notice to inform visitors it was resolving a technical issue.
The Daily Graphic gathers that the attackers demanded for a ransom but Ghanaweb ignored them.
Peacefmonline
With respect to Peacefmonline, the desktop version of the website was not accessible for sometime and it was only the mobile site which was accessible during the period of the attack.
Myjoyonline
In the case of Myjoyonline.com, Adomonline.com and Multitvworld.com, it was noticed around Thursday that the sites were having technical issues and for four days they were not accessible. It was announced on the radio station, Joy FM that the sites were having technical issues and that efforts were underway to resolve it.
As of press time Sunday, Myjoyonline was yet to be back online but Adomonline and Multitvworld were back online.
Galamsey fight
The media has been at the forefront mounting pressure for a ban on illegal mining.
Mr Kenneth Ashigbey, a member of the steering committee of the coalition of media houses in the fight against galamsey suspects that the attacks were deliberate to frustrate the media’s fight against galamsey.
Cyber attacks
There was a sense of alarm and dismay when some state websites were recently hacked and put out of action for a while.
The views of Ghanaian cyber security experts were that, there could be more of such attacks on government agencies and companies as well as on important private establishments if the nation does not develop and implement a cyber security strategy to address cyber warfare, sabotage and espionage.
Just last week the Bank of Ghana (BoG) cautioned banks to guard against vulnerability to cyber-attacks as a result of a growing threat of cyber-attacks and recent instances of fraudulent payments online.
Source: Daily Graphic
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RUBBY, as a concern Ghanaian, I did not base my argument on NDC and NPP. The trend in our ministerial appointments over the years has always been that. I have no issue with Dr. Akoto Osei as Minister of Agriculture because that is his field of expertise and it’s a technical field too. So all that I am trying to say is technical areas such as Communication ministry should be headed by someone who is on top of the fast pace technological trend to push for policies and innovations in the sector. Yes, she is layer and can serve in other capacity but not communication ministry. There is also this misconception about the communication and the Information ministries that the character squealer (***barred word*** farm) should occupy it or in other words spin-doctors. Moreover, for those blaming the influx of foreign nationals as the cause of cyber-attacks you are getting it wrong. The bigger picture is that, the internet has no boundaries if as nation you do not built walls around your cyber space. Hacking can be done from anywhere once you have the tools and the knowhow. With influx of social media platform and its adoption amidst the absence and adherence of information security and trust policies as well as access controls, hackers can hit barely any institution and the most dangerous form of it what perpetrated through social media is what we call SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Don you are rather naive. The lady you talking about is 100% smarter and intelligent than you. She is a lawyer by profession and among international women lawyers. She is not a mere person and she is not naive like you she knows what she is talking about, she has headed Ghana Association of women lawyers before and she is a no ***barred word*** lady that doesn't make her naive. Ndc are scared and hate any one who is tough. Anyway! She is a tough lady. She deserve her post if Oye Lithur could be a minister so is Ursula Owusu, Get a life you lazy fo*l and make a living.
There are so many Nigerians in our country doing this hacking and fraud activities. But the sad part is we Ghanaians know them and know what they do, we all watch this activities and do nothing about it ..
IS HIGH TIME GOVERNMENT SHOULD GET SOME TASK FORCE TO INTERNET CAFES TO ARREST THIS PEOPLE .. THE INTERNET PROVIDES CAN BE OF HELP ..
THERE ARE NO LAWS IN GHANA: BLACK PEOPLE ARE FUUUUUULS. THE SAME THING IS HAPPENING IN UGANDA AND ZAMBIA WHERE THERE ARE INFLUX OF CHINESE WITH ACCOMPANYING DESTRUCTION OF THEIR NATURAL RESOURCES. UGANDA IMMIGRATION WAS HEARD SAYING CHINESE ARE MAKING BABIES WITH THE LOCAL POPULATION SO THEIR PRESENCE IN UGANDA IS GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY. BLACK PEOPLE CAN BE BOUGHT AND BRIBED WITH 2 GHANA CEDIS. FOR THE FIRST PLACE HOW DID THESE CHINESE ENDED UP IN GHANA? DON'T WE HAVE IMMIGRATION MINISTER? OR SOMEONE IN CHARGE OF IMMIGRATION? CORRUPT IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS AND SOME POLICE PERSONNEL SHOULD BE BLAMED FOR ALL THE INFLUX OF FOREIGN ILLEGAL MINERS IN THE COUNTRY WITH ACCOMPANYING ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AND DESTRUCTION OF OUR WATER BODIES.
Seriously, our leaders are not serious, because ministerial positions are occupied base on who insulted and defended the party the most. If you this lady as minister of communication what policy direction can she give in terms of cyber security. But reading the few comments here too amuses me. Ghana is doomed because every serious national issue is reduce to NDC and NPP debate. We should all be serious for once and it is not compulsory to comment on every issue if you naive about it. Privacy, security, and threats are big issue and every country which is serious is investing to protect is cyber space.
It should be a wake up call for npp.....ndc can use this method to rig the 2020 elections
This is an experiment by NDC hackers to find out the effectiveness of their plans to disrupt 2020 elections and thereby rigging it on behalf of NDC. The ministries of information and communication and the security agencies must up their game to thwart their efforts. Let's also remember that NDC has some illegal immigrants in Ghana who came from South Africa to disrupt the success of the free education. Their main target is the national identification system, health insurance and the electoral commission of which I am certainly sure the EC Chairperson might know something about. WATCH OUT NPP!!!!!!!!!!
Chinese want Ghanaians to ***barred word*** and watch while they destroy our country. Deport all of them!
Ok I now understand why you were off. Shame to hackers