A snapshot taken from the Justice Ministry website after it was hacked by ”Raise Your Voice” Lebanese governmental and security-related websites hacked overnight by a hackers\' collective calling itself “Raise Your Voice” were back online early Tuesday afternoon, reported Lebanese daily The Daily Star.
Visitors to security-related sites like that of the police and State Security, as well as those wanting to gain access to ministry websites were confronted with a message from the group to the government.
“We are RYV, short for Raise Your Voice, and we are simply a group of people who could not bear sitting in silence, watching all the crimes and injustice going on in Lebanon. We will not be silenced and brainwashed by your media. We will not stop until the Lebanese people mobilise, demand their rights, and earn them,” part of the message said.
“We will not stop until the standards of living are raised to where they should be in Lebanon. We will not stop until this government\'s self-made problems are solved, like the power shortage, water shortage, rise in gas prices and rise in food product prices. We are RYV, expect us to break the silence, whether in the streets or on the Internet. Silence is a crime,” the message ends.
Several ministry-related websites took longer to resume normal functioning, including those of the foreign, energy and justice ministries. These sites were back online at around 1pm.
The country’s National News Agency was also among state-related websites targeted in the hacking. Its online services resumed at around 10.20am.
Another media-related site that was targeted was the popular MTV station.
“They called me early this morning and informed me of the hacking,” Ghayas Yazbek, the head of the news department at MTV, told The Daily Star.
He confirmed that Raise Your Voice was behind the virtual attack.
MTV was up and running at around 1pm.