Why hackers are successful in attacking government websites

In an interview dated April 2, 2009 and published in the website of the Philippine Journal an official of the Anti-Transnational Crime Division of the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group said that 667 government websites were defaced during the five year period (2003-2008).

He also enumerated the hackers who successfully defaced government websites including Rebarz99 crediting him with "six hits during the same period." Rebarz99 is a well known Filipino hacker who was responsible for hacking Philippine government websites like:

National Power Corporation (www.napocor.gov.ph),
Supreme Court of the Philippines (www.supremecourt.gov.ph),
Office of the Ombudsman (www.ombudsman.gov.ph),
National Economic Development Authority (www.neda.gov.ph),
National Computer Center (www.ncc.gov.ph),
Philippine Institute for Developmental Studies (www.pids.gov.ph)
Commission on Information and Communications Technology (www.cict.gov.ph),
Department of Science and Technology (www.dost.gov.ph),
Advanced Science and Technology Institute (www.asti.dost.gov.ph),
The Domain Name Registry of the Philippines (dns.gov.ph)
and there are more...

but hmmm wait that's already a total of TEN government sites successfully hacked by Rebarz99 but the authority quoted in the Philippine Journal report only credited Rebarz99 with SIX. Does this mean that the agency tasked to protect the Philippines' cyber infrastructure does not know the real score?

The claim that only 667 government websites is also erroneous, according to the data gathered by ISAW (http://technews-isaw.blogspot.com) before they went legit, there where 702 Philippine government website defacements in 2006 alone. How come the authorities only recorded only 667 defacements for a period of FIVE years?

So why are hackers successful in attacking government websites? IHAW believes that the authorities tasked to protect the government's cyber infrastructure are clueless.

The proof, the Philippine Journal online quoted the same official saying that PIDS or the website of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies was "hit 28 times", he knew that it was "hit" but he did not do anything about it, go to this link, www.pids.gov.ph/main.htm this hack was done by Rebarz99 in 2006 and you can still see it inside the PIDS website.

Go to WAKOPAKI's blog for more about this (http://wakopaki.blogspot.com/2009/04/linux-is-highly-vulnerable-to-hacking.html)