The Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SL CERT) said that following a request received from the Public Security Ministry, it was in the process of carrying out an assessment of the security of the Ministry’s official website which was hacked. 

The Media Spokesperson of the CERT, Charuka Damunupola, speaking to The Daily Morning, said yesterday (13) the Team was to submit a security report to the Ministry on the vulnerability of its official website so that steps could be taken to get those issues corrected. He said the CERT would then have to reassess the website to ensure the issues had been addressed before giving the green light for it to be launched to the public once again. 

Responding to questions, he said that although the Ministry website had faced similar hacking on previous occasions, there had been difficulties for the CERT to address those issues as the testing environment had not been provided by the website’s infrastructure provider, the Information and Communication Technology Agency, due to technical challenges. However, those issues have now been sorted out and the CERT is in the process of assessing those vulnerabilities. 

Damunupola noted the Criminal Investigations Department was carrying out investigations into the hacking following a complaint lodged by the Secretary of the Ministry. According to the Police, it was not the first time the Ministry’s official website was hacked.