iTaukei Land Trust Board website hacked

The website of yet another organisation in Fiji has been hacked.

The iTaukei Land Trust Board website has been hacked and this is the second reported incident this week as the Public Service Commission website was also found to have been hacked on Monday.

All TLTB employees were notified through email after midday today that their website will down for sometime.

We have received confirmation that the website will be undergoing maintenance for a week after the hacking incident.

A cautioning message has been posted by Google before you click on the website address saying that the site may be hacked and if you visit the site, you could be redirected to spam or malware.

An independent expert in the field of Information Technology says Fiji must be proactive in the areas of banking, government, elections, health and utilities following the hacking of another government website this week.

Certified Network Professional Ritesh Kumar who has over 14 years of experience in the information technology field says we have to consider that Fiji's "internet boom" happened just over a decade ago where a lot of organisations started to get their websites done.

He says this means that most of these websites are old, at least by a few years.

Kumar says because the websites are old, their technology and scripts are old and lots of vulnerabilities have been discovered on their used technologies since.

He believes it is these vulnerabilities which most probably are being easily exploited.

Kumar also says another thing he has experienced in the past is the delivery of sub‑standard services by some overseas contractors who were contracted to provide services based on the sole belief that we did not have professionals/specialists in this specific field.

He believes this belief was and is wrong.

Kumar also stresses that vulnerability arising from lack of security affects millions of websites throughout the world and Fijian websites are no exception to this.

The Ministry of Health, RFMF, Fiji Police and Immigration Fiji websites have been hacked over the past few years.

We have sent questions to the Manager of government ITC Services and he is yet to respond.