Malicious hits from multiple locations crash system
SOUTH AFRICA 20 OCTOBER 2010 Organizers of Cape Town 2010, the widest gathering of Christians in the history of the Church, today announced that their internet communication to the outside world had been hacked. ‘We have 700 GlobaLink sites in 95 countries extending the Congress to 100,000 people’, said Victor Nakah, GlobaLink Chair for the Congress. ‘Finally, after two rough days, they are being served as planned.’
The sophisticated computer network developed for sharing Congress content with the world was compromised for the first two days of the Congress. ‘We have tracked malicious attacks by millions of external hits coming from several locations’, said Joseph Vijayam, IT Chair of The Lausanne Movement, sponsor of the gathering. ‘Added to this was a virus brought into the centre on a mobile phone.’
Asked if he could confirm where the hacking came from, he replied, ‘We have a pretty strong indication, but one can never be absolutely certain, so we prefer not to share our suspicions.’
The Congress has drawn carefully-selected participants from 198 nations representing many of the best minds and the most courageous practitioners in the Church. Joseph Vijayam explained that two cousins from Bangalore had largely been responsible for solving the difficulties, due to their unique expertise in the exact problems the Congress was experiencing. Vijay Kumar, an employee of Unisys Global Services, and Daniel Singh, a pastor with a doctorate in computational biology, came forward to help when they learned of the situation. They had come to the Congress as volunteers to help hook up printers and other basic IT tasks. ‘I believe God in his sovereignty brought them to us,’ Mr Vijayam said.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Photographs of Bangalore cousins available.
For more information and updates on Cape Town 2010, The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, go to www.capetown2010.com or lausanne.org/conversation.
Editor’s note: for more information, or for media access to photographs, news releases and audio/ video clips, email [email protected], or go to lausanne.org/news-releases.
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:
A. Larry Ross (+27) 71 546 7263, [email protected]
Julia Cameron (+27) 7680 17329 [email protected]