BC Government Facebook page being restored after apparent hacking
Posted March 27, 2017 8:16 pm.
Last Updated March 28, 2017 9:06 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The BC Government is working at restoring its Facebook page after what appears to be a hacking.
The “verified” Government of British Columbia page showed photos of fireballs, a man in camouflage holding a walkie-talkie and something written in Arabic for about an hour this evening.
One message said “we are the government” (or the rulers).
The BC Government has confirmed to NEWS 1130 that their Facebook page was “compromised”, adding the matter is isolated to that page.
“We are in contact with Facebook and are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible,” says Karen van Marum, who speaks for the province. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our Facebook users.”
Dominic Vogel, chief security strategist for Cyber SC, says this is likely “a low-tech attack exploiting the fact that password management and credential management for social media sites amongst organizations” is notoriously poor.
Another cyber expert, Cytelligence CEO Daniel Tobok, agrees, adding “all it takes is a compromise of the password or the account.
“That’s actually pretty easy,” he adds.
Almost 57,000 people follow the government’s Facebook page.