Arrest of hackers yields surprise allegations
THE arrest last week of three people for hacking into private and government websites, banks and Facebook accounts yielded an unexpected allegation. One of the suspects, who remained identified only by his code name «Kang Kong,» claimed to work in the administrative division of the Manila Bulletin and tagged its technology editor Art Samaniego Jr. as the one who instructed him to look for «vulnerabilities» in unsuspecting websites.
The suspects, presented at a press conference on June 21 by the National Bureau of Investigation-Cybercrime Division (NBI-CCD), were alleged to be members of two big hacking groups: Philippine LulzSec and Globalsec. A third subject with an alias «Allan 10k» will be charged through direct filing, an NBI press statement said.
In a surprise revelation at the tail end of the press conference, one of the suspects said Samaniego had instructed him to look for «vulnerabilities» in the websites of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the National Security Council and the 1Sambayan app.
Samaniego released a statement denying the allegations against him and said «he had been a long-time partner of government agencies in cybersecurity.» He also said he did not order the hacking of some government and bank websites «to boost his social media reach.»
Kang Kong told the NBI Samaniego ordered the hacking of several websites so he could have a «scoop» for his column and social media platforms.
The Manila Times tried to get additional information directly from Samaniego, but he stopped replying to our messages.
«If the accusations are true, and the allegations are proven to be true, he broke two codes of ethics: the code of ethics for journalists and the code of ethics by cybersecurity practitioners,» said Lito Averia, The Manila Times columnist and president of the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team (PH-CERT) live on TechSabado, an online podcast on Saturday, June 22.
Advertisement«We need to look into this further and see what kind of ethical standards we can create in this kind of situation. Journalists should cover the news, not become the news.»
«In an era where trust in journalism is under attack, this incident presents a crisis and
