The website of the Diocese of Sion was hacked – Swiss Catholic Portal

The website of the Diocese of Sion was the victim of a cyber-attack on Saturday December 7, 2024 late in the afternoon. An error message appears after any connection attempt. Alerted, the episcopal council immediately took steps and the pastoral agents were notified by email on Sunday.

Contacted by cath.ch, Father Pierre-Yves Maillard, vicar general of the diocese of Sion, clarified that no ransom demand was requested by the hackers. “We are not too worried, as the site only houses public and non-sensitive data. No payment goes through him, for example.”

In an email sent in French to the diocese of Sion, the hacker, who speaks in ‘I’, claims to have acted with no malicious intent but only to reveal a “critical flaw” in the diocese’s computer system and demonstrate its weakness. “I was able to access your database and delete all data. I see that the site is currently down, which confirms the impact of this vulnerability.” And to offer its services to “remedy this situation and put in place measures which will avoid any recurrence”…

The Geneva agency Procab, which hosts the diocese’s website, was immediately contacted by the diocese, but has still not responded. The fact that the hack took place over a weekend may not be a coincidence. It was also during a weekend that the computer system of the ecclesiastical corporation of St. Gallen was hacked last fall.

The diocese will soon have a new website

Pierre-Yves Maillard also points out that the diocese of Sion is about to put a new site online, in collaboration with a new Valais agency. “The vulnerability of our current site revealed by this hack makes us even more sensitive to security issues and the need to protect ourselves against this type of embezzlement,” he declares.

Safety instructions were recalled in the information email sent to pastoral agents. “Do not interact with unusual content or messages that appear to come from our site or services. Do not click on any suspicious links sent by email or visible on our site. Do not communicate your personal information in response to unusual requests,” they are asked in particular. (cath.ch/lb)