Ghana’s government says its IT experts have regained control of all the government websites which were been hacked on Wednesday.
A Deputy Communications Minister, Ato Sarpong on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News said they are 90 percent through to restoring the various websites.
“I can confirm that yes, we have regained control of our sites. We had to pull the web server down ourselves and as a result of that, all sites that are linked to the web server will be down,” he said.
Early on Wednesday, about 10 government agency websites including the official government of Ghana website were attacked.
The affected websites belong to the Ministries of Communication, Local Government, Trade, Foreign Affairs, Tourism and Water Resources Works and Housing.
The others are; the Ghana Navy, the Scholarship Secretariat, Restored Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA).
However, the Deputy Minister indicated that although the IT experts are 90 percent through, and “the sites could be brought back”, he has tasked the them to ensure that “a lot more checks are carried out to ensure that the necessary protocols required to safeguard the site and avoid any breaches are in place.”
He stressed saying, “I can confirm that we are in control of our sites.”
Mr. Sarpong mentioned that close to 50 sites were hacked on Wednesday including the government of Ghana website.
He however indicated that he is unable to “really give the motivation for this but it happened and we need to put in place the necessary measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again going into the future and that is what we have been working on.
The Deputy Minister added that the government will call a meeting of professionals and experts in the industry to help strengthen government systems because “this is a warning to us – not only to government but to all of us
