Philippine Hackers Deface Sites To 'Expose Flaws'

Saying they're out to help Philippine-based system administrators and MIS managers discover "flaws in the their computer systems," a group of Filipino "freelance security enthusiasts" called Team Asianpride recently went on a hacking spree. Among the first victims of the group's nasty undertaking, which took place in the early hours of Nov. 17, were the Web sites of ABS-CBN (http://www.abs-cbn.com ) and Mosaic Communications (http://www.mozcom.com) . ABS-CBN is the country's largest broadcasting company, while MosCom is the first commercial ISP in the Philippines. A message that the hacker group posted at the defaced ABS-CBN Web site, said the hacks were part of their scheme dubbed as "The 4 O'Clock project." The project has the intention was to "disseminate the importance of Information security here in the Philippines," the group said. The defacement was said to have lasted only a few minutes before the sites' main pages was restored. ABS-CBN Interactive, the division that operates the broadcast giant's online version, has refused to divulge details of the incident. The hackers said they have found that more than 90 percent of the servers can be exploited through common vulnerabilities in their systems. The group added they had already tried to bring this matter to the attention of the system administrators, but to no avail.