Just over five years after an embarrassing hacking of its government website, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, on Wednesday, said hacking again resulted in a post on the Facebook page of its High Commission in London, telling U.K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to “shut up” earlier that day.
“oh shut up Boris – that is have nothing to do with the question” read the post, on Wednesday, which was subsequently deleted.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kingstown, said that the Facebook page “was hacked, resulting in an unauthorised post with apparent reference” to Johnson.
“The dastardly act in no way represents the views of the Government and People of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The Government and People of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will continually respect and value its cordial relationship with the Government and People of the United Kingdom,” Kingstown said in a statement.
“As of Wednesday, a thorough investigation has been launched by officials at the High Commission of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in London, in an effort to identify the source of the hack and to mitigate any future attempts to thwart the relationship between both countries,” the statement further continued.
Kingstown said that the SVG High Commissioner in London, Cenio Lewis immediately expressed great regret to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, reiterating the High Commission’s profound respect for the British Prime Minister, Government and People.
“The Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines reaffirms its high regard for the British Government in keeping with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and extends its best wishes to Prime Minister Johnson and the British People.”
It is the second time in about five years that Kingstown is claiming hacking in embarrassing developments on its Internet platforms.
On May 3, 2015, the landing page of the www.gov.vc website was hacked and replaced by pro-Islamic State messages. The hack was purportedly carried out by an individual or entity using the name “Moroccan Wolf”, who the Moroccan government has said is known to them, Minister of Technology Camillo Gonsalves said after the development.
Speaking to the media towards the end of that month, Gonsalves said that the visit of of Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves to Morocco in March 2015 may have triggered interest in SVG that resulted in the hacking of the government website.
The hacking also occurred at a time when the website was vulnerable, the Ministry of Technology having relaxed some security protocols to allow several programmers to work on a new web portal that was expected to be launched on May 4, the technology minister had said.
What beats me every time is the number of government portfolios that Ralph and his Cronies hold at any given time in SVG.
There is no such thing as separation of powers in SVG. All institutions are controlled by bang guts Gonsalves or one of his cronies.
The other day my VPN blocked iwnsvg.com because it was deemed unsafe. A day later I received an email from a Russian entity offering to do marketing for my company. They sent a proof of concept and other downloadables which I didn’t bother to download because it seemed very much like a phishing exercise.
They then called me, and I had a video-chat with my potential benefactor. This actually strengthened my resolve not to do it as I saw the person on the other end sitting in what appeared to me as a storage depo.
Needless to say, we wiped all our servers clean and upgraded our antivirus software and firewall.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the ULP is using spyware on the NDP and whoever else is a threat to their power. But, I don’t believe they are so stupid to insult the British government on social media.
Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t.
If nothing else the person who wrote that should be sentenced to remedial english classes
The next day my Instagram account was hacked. But my instincts had already kicked in.