Group behind hacking AIADMK website claims responsibility

The websites of two popular Tamil television channels, including ‘Puthiya Thalaimurai,’ were hacked on Saturday.

Pakistan Haxors Crew (PHC), the group that allegedly hacked the AIADMK party website on November 2, has claimed responsibility for this as well in a posting made on the defaced homepages.

The management of ‘Puthiya Thalaimurai’ channel has lodged a complaint with the Chennai Police.

When this reporter visited >www.sunnetwork.in, the homepage of the Sun Group was also found defaced. The homepage of all the three websites looked similar, giving room to suspicion that the same group was involved.

The suspects said on the defaced homepage that they wanted justice and peace. They also wanted the release of the “innocent kid,” in an apparent reference to P. Eswaran (27) of Bangalore who was arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the Chennai Police, on charges of attempting to hack into the AIADMK party website.

Additional Commissioner of Police (CCB) R.S. Nallasivam said Eswaran was not the real hacker. But he had made at least 300 attempts to enter the administrator’s account of the AIADMK party website.

“He admitted to have made several attempts to hack into the party website. We seized the laptop and other tools used to commit the offence. Efforts are on to apprehend the suspects who actually hacked these websites…we have sought the assistance of Anna University, National Informatics Centre and others in the investigation,” he told The Hindu. Hours after their website was hacked, ‘Puthiya Thalaimurai’ put up a homepage saying that the portal was undergoing technical upgrade and would be back soon.

The AIADMK website, police sources said, was managed by a team based at Ambattur here.

“They did not have adequate security systems to prevent hackers…but the fact that the websites of two leading media houses have also been hacked is worrisome. We are following some specific clues that may lead to the arrest of the suspects soon,” a police official said.