Congress hacked

By Doug Koop  |  Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The congress has been plagued by Internet problems. In the pressroom and for thousands of participants, not being able to file stories or receive emails from home is a frustrating inconvenience. Muttering abounded. More importantly, it was impossible to serve the Global Link system of video downloads in nearly 700 locations in 95 countries.

On day three of the gathering, IT chair Joseph Vijayam confirmed that the Lausanne Congress network had been hacked. "We have tracked malicious attacks by millions of external hits coming from several locations," he explained in a press release. "Added to this was a virus brought into the centre on a mobile phone."

At a press conference, Vijayam confirmed this was "a deliberate attack to bring us down." He said it was difficult to pinpoint the source of the attacks because they came from all over the world and proxies make it possible to mask the actual route. He lauded several local companies for their good cooperation.

And he pointed to two young congress volunteers from Bangalore who were largely responsible for solving the difficulties, due to their unique expertise in the exact problems the congress was experiencing. Vijay Kumar and Daniel Singh came to hook up printers and help with routine tasks, but they worked through the night to isolate the problems and clean up the servers.

This article originally appeared on Doug Koop's blog, detailing his experiences at the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa.

Respond to Article  |  E-mail Article  |  Print Article