The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

and RICARDO WELLS

THE United States government has stepped in to assist Bahamian officials after two government websites were hacked by an Islamist activist group last week.

US Embassy spokesperson Neda Brown said the cyber-attack undertaken by the Tunisian group called the “Fallaga Team” was troubling because it targeted critical infrastructure, and represented a threat to the country’s national security and economy.

Two Ministry of Tourism websites, www.bahamas.com and www.bahamasfilm.com, were defaced on Wednesday, prompting a widespread review of all government websites for possible breaches. Websites were reportedly safeguarded and reinforced against potential vulnerabilities by the implementation of software patching.

In a later statement, the ministry said the government intends to create a permanent public/private sector committee that will meet regularly, conduct regular audits of public Internet infrastructure and advise the government on matters of cyber-security so as to inform public policy in future.

“We are troubled by all reports of cyber-attacks of this nature,” Ms Brown, the Acting Deputy Chief of Mission, said. “Malicious cyber actors who target critical infrastructure are a threat to a country’s national security and economy. We take such threats very seriously and, as such, US law enforcement officials are assisting Bahamian law enforcement officials on this matter.”

The hack follows a cyber-attack on the government website of St Vincent and the Grenadines earlier this month. The attack was claimed to be the work of an “Islamist rebel group”, according to I-Witness News (IWN), which reported that a message was posted on the St Vincent government’s website claiming that an “Islamist rebel group” had hacked the site.

“Visitors to the website were greeted by a message saying ‘Hacked by Moroccanwolf - Islamic State’ and a photo of a man firing a machine gun from the back of a pick up truck,” IWN reported.

According to the Jamaica Observer, a message appearing on the website said that US and NATO Forces are involved in “organised butchery of human race since it’s (sic) inception. They overthrow governments of sovereign nations and they undermine, threaten, refuse to recognise and seek to destroy democratically elected governments like there are in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Palestine,” the message said.

Up to last night, the government’s website www.gov.vc appeared to still be offline. It is unclear how the Bahamian websites were defaced; however, Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe said officials were ready with an immediate fix and will “spare no effort in protecting and safeguarding these valuable assets”.

“You have to appreciate now, (the Bahamas) is a tourism destination, we are not the only country that has had this problem,” Mr Wilchcombe said. “Other countries that need tourism have had problems similar. What we have to do is make sure now that we are monitoring and understanding that with this new world order the reality is we have to ensure that we have the proper, professional monitoring taking place and we are able to raise the red flag when we have to and as soon as we do so respond.

“But again you are never sure what happened, you are never sure what went out from the Bahamas or what was our website used for and that is what we are continuing to watch and we are continuing to check with authorities all over the world because we want to have certainty. We don’t want our websites to be used for or manipulated by anyone who has evil in mind.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie said the incident posed enormous national security implications for the country when announcing the attack to parliamentarians on Wednesday. Mr Wilchombe said that the government has implemented, through software patching, stringent firewalls to deliver the strongest possible cyber-security protocols. Tourism officials said in a statement that the government intends to create a permanent public/private sector committee that will meet regularly, conduct regular audits of public Internet infrastructure and advise the government on matters of cyber-security so as to inform future public policy.