r Ministry of Defence - Sri Lanka

No data breach occured in cyber-attack attempts - SLCERT

May 31, 2020

Sri Lanka CERT|CC has confirmed that a couple of websites in Sri Lanka have been defaced by a group of activists.

Chief Executive Officer of the Sri Lanka CERT|CC Lal Dias said the ultimate goal of these activists was to draw the attention of different audiences and to spread messages of hatred.

“It is important that unwarranted prominence is not given to these activists. Similar attacks have been experienced by the nation in the past, and to overcome these types of attacks Sri Lanka CERT|CC established a Task Force and a Working Group to take proactive measures,” he said.

The group consists of key government and private sector stakeholders including Internet Service Providers.

Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team | Coordinating Centre (Sri Lanka CERT|CC), is Sri Lanka’s National CERT serving under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence.  

It is mandated with the task of protecting Sri Lanka’s Information and Information Systems infrastructure.

Dias said that a website ‘defacement’ is when an attacker changes the visual appearance of the webpage or website. He also emphasized that no data breach has occurred in this attempt to deface the websites.

“The Task Force team has been able to identify the defaced sites and act in a timely manner to address the situation. The incident was detected at 6.38 am and by 7.30 am the Information Security Engineers at CERT had rectified the websites” he explained.