Your Catholic Church under attack today

Sophisticated hackers knocked much of the Vatican's website offline today, forcing many pages to display a 404 error. 

Hackers attacked the Vatican today.

Highlights

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
12/1/2022 (1 year ago)

Published in Living Faith

Keywords: Vatican, Catholic, websites, cyberattack

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -  Sophisticated cyberattacks hit the Vatican today, forcing many pages offline. Most pages on the site displayed a "404 error" message. This error is displayed when a webpage no longer exists or is temporarily removed from the internet. Webmasters may remove webpages during attacks to prevent hackers from displaying offensive content, or to simply stop the attack. 

Such attacks are common, but they rarely succeed. Most attacks are detected by various security measures across the internet, and are intercepted. Other attacks reach the websites where countermeasures are taken to prevent interruption. Occasionally an attack allows hackers to change the content on a webpage, or to redirect a webpage to another site. Other forms of attack may seek to steal sensitive information, or plant seeds for future attacks. 

Those responsible for such attacks are rarely identified. Hackers are able to conceal their identities and locations by a variety of means. In fact, most cyberattacks are carried out by "bots," which are software programs that do the same thing over and over until they are deactivated. Bots can also be positioned across the internet, so an attack appears to come from many places at once, and not from any one hacker's system. Many cybercriminals also work in teams, further complicating measures to identify them. 

Instead of pursuing such persons, who may be anywhere in the world, most entities simply take down their site or suspend operations until the hackers move on to another project. 

Attacks such as these reveal that evil remains an active and potent force in the world. Even the most benevolent of organizations are targets. The Church especially so.

As Catholics, we have a responsibility to defend our Church through prayerful support and action. The best we can do is to first evangelize ourselves, then our families, then the world at large. This requires education, and it is the only way to convert hearts to Jesus Christ. In fact, this is the approach that Jesus took and commanded. 

If you want to frustrate those who would do the Church harm, the best you can do is pray, then act to support Catholic causes. Be that your local parish, a food bank, or best of all, those who educate and share the Gospel, rest assured that evil recoils in response to your goodness. 

To make this even easier, here is a great organization that is doing a lot to serve you and many others in the world. Help them out if you can!