PARAMARIBO--Suriname’s Government website gov.sr and other official websites that have been offline since Wednesday, have not been hacked, according to Gardelito Hew A Kee.
Government’s E-Government coordinator Hew A Kee said on Friday that it concerned a “DoS attack.” In a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing their websites, e-mail, online accounts (banking, etc.), or other services.
Hew A Kee said there was no truth to an anonymous e-mail that claimed responsibility for taking gov.sr (all Government websites), sms597.com, dsbbank.sr and ndp.sr offline. The sender of the e-mail claimed to represent international hacker’s movement Anonymous and demanded US $10,000 from Government.
“Dear corrupt Government. Today, November 24, we took down your bank website www.dsbbank.sr and we will continue taking down all your websites. You can stop this attack by completing a transaction of US $10,000 to Bitcoin address. Every day you stall US $10,000 will be added. This transaction must be done by the Government. We are not after the people’s money. The tables have turned Government… the people want their money back,” the e-mail stated.
But the E-Government coordinator said it was his department that had taken all servers offline, and merely as a precaution in response to the DoS attacks. He said that with the help of an international team that is currently in Suriname, his department had been able to trace the attacks to Bulgaria. “But that could also be a diversion, so we are still investigating further,” he said.
He assured that in the meantime people need not worry, because “no information has been lost or stolen and everything is safe.”
He said they were also tracing the IP addresses from which the e-mails were sent. “It may well be that they were sent from a computer based here locally. If and when we are able to trace it, we will pass on the information to justice. And if it originated from abroad, we will pass the information to the authorities of that country and ask them to take action,” said Hew A Kee.
