Indonesian Fact-Checking Website `Cekfakta.com` Hacked

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Media-run general fact-checking website cekfakta.com was hacked on Tuesday, February 19, after the website superintended the heated presidential debate on Sunday, February 17.

Indonesian Cyber Media Association (AMSI) secretary general Wahyu Dhyatmika explained that the hack was first noticed when social media complaints started to emerge at around 18:00 Jakarta time.

“The username could not be accessed when we checked,” said Wahyu who is one of the website’s initiator on Tuesday.

Read also: Cekfakta, the Inner Workings of Electoral Fact Checkers

According to him, the DNS of cekfakta.com was replaced and redirected to ghost videos from youtube.com. He said that the hacker changed the website’s username account password used to register the website’s domain.

“Cekfakta.com’s infrastructure is actually quite safe, the loophole was only in the account that was used to register the domain,” said Wahyu.

This marks the first hack experienced by the fact check website after it held a high-profile fact-checking session at Google Indonesia’s headquarters on Sunday parallel to the presidential debate that saw Jokowi pitted with Prabowo Subianto.

Cekfakta.com management has requested help from IDWebHost as the domain’s administrator and is committed to improving its security. The website has run normally after Tempo accessed it this morning at 07:00 AM

SYAFIUL HADI