The websites of numerous Thai government institutions have been taken over by hackers working for online gambling platforms and transformed into access points for illegitimate gaming sites.
Hackers have accessed websites belonging to state organizations under each of the 20 ministries, according to Minister of Digital Economy and Society Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn. He revealed on Friday that over 30 million state agency website URLs had been compromised (Feb 17).
According to the minister, the hackers were successful in planting harmful scripts that linked to websites that offered online gambling. The script made governmental agency websites that had been taken over by online gambling websites appear among the top Google search results because it contained keywords for online gambling and links to gaming platforms.
Late in November, police executed a search warrant at a home in Bangkok’s Bang Khun Thian neighborhood and detained 15 persons on suspicion of hacking into official websites and inserting links to the online gambling company they were employed by. Police discovered that the suspects had accessed over 115 state agency websites after looking through the suspects’ computers.
Notwithstanding the recent police crackdown, Google search results in mid-February for “gaming” (either the English or Thai phrase) along with “.go.th” still showed links to gambling websites with addresses of Thai governmental agencies. (The official web addresses of Thai government institutions sometimes terminate in “.go.th”).
This is not shocking given the enormous number of links to online gambling sites that were discovered on government websites.
Recent Google searches yielded information about various Thai state agencies’ hacked URLs. The Department of Mental Health (dmh.go.th), the National Institute for Emergency Medicine (niems.go.th), the Office of the Education Council (onec.go.th), the Thai Industrial Standards Institute (tcps.tisi.go.th), the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (dep.go.th), the Food and Drug Administration (fda.moph.go.th), the Office of the Basic Education Commission (obec
According to experts, online gambling organizations target legitimate government websites to get around a Google filter that prevents gambling websites from showing up in search results.
Public hospitals worst affected
They claimed that a lot of government organizations contract out the creation, hosting, and upkeep of their websites. Yet, sporadic website upkeep exposes numerous businesses to cyber hazards like hacking.
The National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA) found in December that online gambling hackers had infiltrated up to 26 million Thai government websites.
Hospitals run by the government are some of those most impacted. According to Dr. Anant Kanoksilp, director of information technology and communications at the office of the ministry’s permanent secretary, script related to online gambling was discovered on about 8 million webpages of organizations under the Ministry of Public Health.
He recently explained, “Several website developers retired or were transferred, thus websites were left neglected and not updated.”
If the organizations concerned do not update their software and servers with greater protection, hackers may plant new links even after malicious links have been deleted from the impacted URLs, according to Dr. Anant.
Ineffective technology is to blame
Around 80% of Thai state agency websites, according to IT specialist Teerak Boonprecha, were built using technology that is now antiquated and lacking in security protections against cyber threats when it was developed 10–15 years ago.
He claimed that because these organizations engaged outside website developers and lacked the expertise to manage their websites, their systems were open to cyber attempts.
According to him, hackers who work for online gambling platforms infiltrate hacked webpages’ computer servers before inserting links that point to their gaming sites.
Some gambling websites have servers located elsewhere, but they prefer to deal with Thai gamblers. They want links to their websites to appear in Google searches for Thai gamblers. But, they are unable to host their servers in Thailand due to the danger of having their websites disabled. In order to avoid being blocked, they choose to place their connections on the websites of Thai government organizations, which is a safer option, according to Teerak.
According to the IT specialist, hackers working for online gambling gangs covertly embed their links on specific websites, especially in system-deep directories.
Alternatives to the issue
He advised state organizations to acquire tools to check for foreign content and engage specialists to maintain their websites. Additionally, they must periodically update the software that runs their website, restrict access to their servers, and demand identification before granting access.
According to AVM Amorn Chomchoey, secretary-general of the NCSA, the issue is that the majority of hospitals, particularly small ones, neither have their own websites nor have their own servers. He claimed that because they cannot enhance their security, their reliance on web hosting reveals their vulnerability.
Amorn suggested that giving the Digital Government Development Agency (DGA) control over managing official websites as a long-term fix. He said that the DGA could administer and keep an eye on the security of government institutions’ websites by providing them with pre-made, standardized websites.
