#AprilLulz, the annual hacking event participated by homegrown black hat hacker group Pinoy LulzSec, made headlines again this year as multiple websites fell victim to their global hacking activities.
In 2018, websites of known brands such as Wendy’s, and of government such as that of the province of Bulacan were defaced. Databases of the Department of Education Calamba and Bacoor were among those that were leaked.
This year, a huge number of companies and government agencies were compromised in support of the #AprilLulz. It is also worth noting that other local hacking groups, Pinoy Clown Security and Philippines CyberSec Community, also participated in the event making this year’s hacking activities more damaging than ever.
Jollibee Food Corporation’s Cooperative website (JFC Coop) was among the last to be targeted. Aside from web defacement, the hacking group divulged some copies of the IDs of the employees/members that they were able to acquire after compromising the website.
The web portal of the Department of Interior and Local Government – National Capital Region (DILG -NCR) was also hit along with the data leakage concerning the Armed Forces of the Philippines for which the latter downplayed in their news interview.
Social media account takeover was also rampant during the three-day hacking event with various Facebook users unable to log in after these hackers gain control of their accounts. Others’ user credentials were exposed online as well.
“April Lulz” may be over for this year but the hackers will continue to do their thing as long as there are websites that are poorly secured. While their goal for the event was just to make fun out of those websites that they’re able to compromise, this also teaches us all a lesson that even the top brands and the government, who have obviously the money to invest in security, are still hackable.
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