Tech-savvy PTI gets Facebook pages back up
The pages, hacked on Friday, went back up early Monday as young party members worked with FIA and Facebook management.
KARACHI:
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s official Facebook pages, which were taken down by hackers on Friday, have been put back up.
“The pages were put back up at around 5am on Monday after hectic efforts by party members in the US and Pakistan,” President of the Insaf Students Federation in Karachi, Arsalan Ghumman, told The Express Tribune.
Approximately 30 pages were hacked, including the official page of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, ISF’s own page and that of PTI Secretary General Dr Arif Alvi.
“We immediately contacted the National Response Cell on Cyber Crime, a department of the Federal Investigation Agency, as well as the management of Facebook in the US,” Ghumman said.
Since it was a weekend in the US, it delayed the process and made it that much more complicated. “But it worked to our advantage that the PTI is an officially recognised political party in the US,” he said.
Although PTI has a fair idea of who hacked the pages, Ghumman said, they are not willing to disclose the hacker’s identity right now. “I just want to clarify that this is not an inside job, as some people have been saying on social networking websites. The hacker is not and was not a member of the PTI,” he said, adding that the party is considering holding a press conference to disclose who hacked the pages.
Meanwhile, ProPakistani, a blog reporting on Pakistan’s telecom and information technology industry, reported that a 21-year-old boy who claims to have hacked the PTI pages had uploaded his picture on one of the hacked pages.
According to a message he posted on the page before it was taken down, the hacker called himself “UN DT” and showed that he’s in Karachi. Screenshots, exclusively shared with ProPakistani, show the hacker’s message that he hacked the pages because the PTI administration doesn’t allow fans to post questions on pages’ walls, restricting fans from asking anything from the PTI.
He disassociated himself from any political party and demanded that the Facebook pages’ administrators be terminated.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s official Facebook pages, which were taken down by hackers on Friday, have been put back up.
“The pages were put back up at around 5am on Monday after hectic efforts by party members in the US and Pakistan,” President of the Insaf Students Federation in Karachi, Arsalan Ghumman, told The Express Tribune.
Approximately 30 pages were hacked, including the official page of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, ISF’s own page and that of PTI Secretary General Dr Arif Alvi.
“We immediately contacted the National Response Cell on Cyber Crime, a department of the Federal Investigation Agency, as well as the management of Facebook in the US,” Ghumman said.
Since it was a weekend in the US, it delayed the process and made it that much more complicated. “But it worked to our advantage that the PTI is an officially recognised political party in the US,” he said.
Although PTI has a fair idea of who hacked the pages, Ghumman said, they are not willing to disclose the hacker’s identity right now. “I just want to clarify that this is not an inside job, as some people have been saying on social networking websites. The hacker is not and was not a member of the PTI,” he said, adding that the party is considering holding a press conference to disclose who hacked the pages.
Meanwhile, ProPakistani, a blog reporting on Pakistan’s telecom and information technology industry, reported that a 21-year-old boy who claims to have hacked the PTI pages had uploaded his picture on one of the hacked pages.
According to a message he posted on the page before it was taken down, the hacker called himself “UN DT” and showed that he’s in Karachi. Screenshots, exclusively shared with ProPakistani, show the hacker’s message that he hacked the pages because the PTI administration doesn’t allow fans to post questions on pages’ walls, restricting fans from asking anything from the PTI.
He disassociated himself from any political party and demanded that the Facebook pages’ administrators be terminated.