UNIDENTIFIED hackers broke into the web site of the office of Vice President Jojo Binay over the weekend but inflicted no serious damage. They said they only meant to show how easy it was to hack into government web sites.

Binay’s spokesman, Joey Salgado, confirmed the hacker attack but assured the BusinessMirror in an interview that there was “no damage” to the web site.

Salgado said an unknown group calling itself “Philker” claimed responsibility for the break-in.

“There was a message posted by a group that called itself Philker. The group said it just wanted to call attention daw to the lack of security in government web sites. But when you refresh the page naman, balik sa OVP [Office of the Vice President] web site,” he said.

Salgado said their technicians were already addressing the issue but the OVP also alerted and asked other concerned government agencies to look into the case.

“It is quite unfortunate that certain groups have been able to hack the official web site of the Office of the Vice President,” Salgado said. “We have already contacted concerned government agencies and have asked them to look into the matter. We are hoping that this issue will be speedily resolved.

 “Perhaps, we can find a way to get them to help other government offices secure their web sites [from hackers], especially sensitive agencies,” he added.

According to Red Pasetes of the OVP, what happened was that when they accessed the web site on Monday morning, “there was a big picture of Philker in place of the photo of the Vice President and after a few seconds it would redirect and the page would be replaced with a message from Philker that they do not mean to cause damage.”

“They just want to get the attention of the government on how easy it is to hack the country’s cyberspace. They aim to keep our cyberspace safe daw,” he added.