ourCOG TAKEOVER (A Decade Later): The Hack

ourCOG February 4, 2023 5:55 am #ourCOG

ourCOG.org was launched on 18 October, 2010 at 06:08 AM

ALERT: Church of God Facebook Page Compromised

Posted March 14, 2013 by Church of God & filed under Sticky.

On Monday, March 11, 2:30 pm, the administrators of the Church of God Facebook Page all received emails from Facebook informing them that someone else had “proven ownership” of the Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/COGHQ/ and were all immediately locked out of the Page. However, since all of the authorized individuals were removed by Facebook, it seemed as if NO ONE was managing the page at the time.

Over the course of the week, each administrator made multiple attempts to contact Facebook and request help, but received no responses of any kind.

Tonight, the “hacker” began making posts. The first was an attempt to steal funds from our users by providing a PayPal link and requesting donations. The second post was a warning that the Page would be shut down. Within 60 seconds, the Page disappeared from Facebook for a short while before returning with an updated cover photo that was intended to make a statement against Church of God users by promoting a dangerous and controversial book and author. The authorized administrators reported the photo as “hate speech” in an attempt to draw attention from Facebook. Soon thereafter, the Page was once again “taken down” by the hacker.

As of this posting, the Page remains inaccessible and out of control of the Church of God.

This is not a matter of a guessed password. This is a sophisticated takeover that managed to fool the Facebook system itself, and thus far, we are at the mercy of Facebook personnel in terms of restoring the Page. Both your patience and your prayers for swift and just resolve are appreciated.

Alejandro Ramirez Perez: The rookie hacker posted a 1 minute warning in his 1 minute of fame, and then took it down. Please COG check what other areas, if any, might be at risk. Although it reeked of a high-school or college freshman hacker-wannabe, I would not rule out any other pages, portals or confidential information hacked or leaked out. And I saw it in slow-motion! I tried in vain to warn at the www.churchofgod.org contact form, but nothing. Also, I desperately scurried about for Cameron Fisher’s contact info through google, to see if he could either do something about it or alert the proper persons or department, but as I found out, www.churchofgod.org is so immune to email harvesting cybersecurity threats, that such info was invisible.