CYBER TERROR

Attack on Christian charity is vile
There may be worse crimes than fraud perpetrated by hacking into a charity’s website, but the assault on Aid to the Church in Need and its donors by unknown thieves still sickens.
The identity theft and credit card abuse are bad enough; but to use illegally obtained personal details in order to exploit the good will of Christians in the run-up to Christmas is especially despicable. It takes an unusually callous mind to cold-call donors posing as the representative of a good cause and pocket the proceeds.
But this, of course, is to assume that financial gain was the principal motive for the attack. In fact, the criminals seem to have used the information they obtained to indulge in the odd gleeful spending spree at others’ expense, rather than systematically to impoverish their victims down to the last penny.
We have to wonder, therefore, whether they were up to something more sinister than a mere electronic mugging, and whether this was a crime not so much facilitated by callousness as driven by hatred. The damage done to the individuals concerned has been, fortunately, limited, especially since their credit card companies have agreed to make good their losses. But the damage done to Aid to the Church in Need itself, and to its work in support of persecuted Christians around the world, is incalculable.
Charities are utterly dependent on the trust of their donors, and any doubt raised concerning administrative competence, security or confidentiality– however unfair it may be – inevitably translates into a devastating loss of revenue. ACN was quite right to shut down its website at the first hint of trouble, but this in itself makes the job of effective fundraising in the computer age well-nigh impossible.
If the criminals’ intention was to undermine the efforts of an organisation dedicated to offering financial support to suffering Christians, then they can be well pleased with the evil they have wrought. So who are they? John Pontifex, Head of News for ACN, has quite properly declined to speculate on whether the charity might have been targeted because of the nature of its work and strong links with the Church; that is a matter for the police to investigate.
But it is hard to avoid such a conclusion, given that ACN’s website was protected by the best security systems available, rather than an open goal vulnerable to amateur hackers The conclusion is unavoidable: someone out there deliberately set out to harm Aid to the Church in Need. That their actions have also damaged other charities by making donors think twice before giving, and soured the charitable spirit of Christmas into the bargain, we can assume will bother them not in the slightest. It all adds up to a very ugly crime.