South Africa (MNN) — 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.
Larry Ross, a spokesman for
Lausanne Congress says, "The sophisticated computer network developed for
sharing Congress content with the world via the Internet was compromised due to
a perfect storm of an internal system virus originating from one mobile phone
on site, combined with malicious attacks by millions of external hits from
several international locations."
Asked if he could confirm where
the hacking came from, Joseph Vijayam, IT Chair of The Lausanne Movement, replied,"‘We have a pretty strong indication, but one can never be absolutely certain,
so we prefer not to share our suspicions."
The attacks were causing access
problems for the delegates. Tuesday
night, the Web sites crashed and the IT department went into overdrive to find
the problem so that participants from 700
GlobaLink sites in 95 countries could participate.
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. The two cousins from
Bangalore, India had come to the Congress as volunteers to help hook up
printers and other basic IT tasks.
It was no mistake that two
experts were among the delegates. Their
unique expertise equipped them to help solve the technical problems the Congress was experiencing. Vijayam says, "I believe God in His
sovereignty brought them to us."
The root of the
problem was finally addressed, and everything was up and running again. Victor Nakah, GlobaLink Chair for the Congress, says, "Finally, after two
rough days, they are being served as planned."
The attack heightened awareness
about the adversity facing the Gospel. Ross explains, "It's a biblical principle that it's a spiritual battle
that we face. In terms of future ministry, we can anticipate this kind of
situation."
Ross says security measures are in
place. More importantly, he urges, "Pray for these leaders that
they'll maximize their time here in forming relationships and with renewing
themselves personally, equipping and empowering them to go back into ministry."
