14 DAY TRIAL // Hackers of the RedHack group have breached the systems of the General Directorate of EGO (ego.gov.tr), the organization that serves as the public transports department for the municipality of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.
By breaching the organization’s servers, the hacktivists say they’ve uncovered some of the wrongdoings of Melih Gökçek, Ankara’s mayor.
The hackers say the public transport department’s employees are “serving the mayor’s ego” by registering fake Twitter accounts.
“These accounts used to hike follower numbers and spread misinformation about public demand for justice and distort the agenda in his favor,” RedHack representatives noted. “Municipality employees work tirelessly to manipulate social media.”
The hackers have published screenshots showing the email addresses, usernames and passwords of these employees. They’ve also leaked the email credentials of General Directorate of EGO workers, including ones belonging to web administrators.
One of the reasons that RedHack targeted ego.gov.tr is because of the collaboration between Tamer Sahin, a famous Turkish hacker, and the mayor of Ankara. The hacktivists say this collaboration suggests that authorities are starting to panic.
Last year, several people were arrested by police on suspicion of being connected to RedHack. However, the group denied that any of them had any involvement with them, and continued to attack high-profile websites.
The hackers also say they’ve breached EFO’s FTP server, on which they have found several documents and evidence that authorities are using pirated software.
Earlier this year, RedHack breached the systems of several organizations, including the Turkish Contractors Association, the State Railways and the Izmir headquarters of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
They have also exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on the website of the country’s Parliament to send a message to government officials.