Turkey offers to help Ghana find hackers

The Government of Turkey has offered to collaborate with Ghana to investigate the hacking of the Ghana Government’s websites by a Turkish hackers group.

According to the Turkish government, its Cyber Response Team was ready to assist in identifying the hackers and the reason for their action.

Ms Nesrin Bayazit, the Turkish Ambassador to Ghana, told journalists at the Flagstaff House after meeting with Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.

The hacking issue was not the focus of the meeting between the two dignitaries, as it was originally meant to enable the new Ambassador introduce herself to the Vice President, as well as discuss ways of improving the bilateral relations between Ghana and Turkey.

She said the Turkish Embassy was duly informed by the Ministry of Communications in a letter about the offer of support.

Eleven Government of Ghana portals went down early this week, after they were hacked by Alsancak Tim, a group of Turkish hackers, which claimed responsibility for the action.

In a message on its Facebook page, the group said its action was in reaction to “Ghana’s intense missionary activity (that) results in a reduction of the Muslim population. We stand by our Muslim brothers. We are at war with state oppression and exploitation.”

Ms Bayazit called for circumspection on the reportage of the issue, indicating that attempts to create the impression that the Government of Turkey was behind the action, was not the best.

“It is not easy to establish the origin of such cyber-attacks, and some of the reports are blowing the issue out of proportion,” she said, adding “we should not allow this to come between the two countries.”

Ms Bayazit stated that the Turkish government had also fallen victim to similar cyber-attacks, in the past, adding that, “no country is totally immune to these attacks.”

Touching on some of the issues discussed at the meeting with the Vice President, Ms Bayasit said they agreed that there was the need to strengthen the bilateral and economic relations between the two countries.

She said the two sides further agreed that there was a need to explore more opportunities in the health, education, agriculture and trade sectors,, adding that the current trade volumes did not reflect the opportunities created from the bilateral relations between the two nations.

Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, on his part assured the new Ambassador of government’s support and cooperation towards consolidating the gains made from the cordial relations between the two countries.

Source: GNA