Rumours that The Phnom Penh Post’s website was taken over by Vietnamese hackers were denied by members of the company’s staff on Wednesday after running technical tests on its network.

Naly Pilorge, the director of local human rights NGO Licadho, was quoted by Australia’s ABC News as saying, “Since last Tuesday [May 8], computers in our office were targeted by a malicious piece of code when we visited The Post’s website.”

The report said Licadho staff visiting the site were redirected to a fake Google page about privacy, and then to a page called GTransfer which asks for permission to “read, send, delete and manage your email” and “view your contacts”.

Licadho staff declined to speak with a Post reporter when contacted to verify the matter.

However, tests done by the news site’s technical team found no “malicious code”.

Seng Nak, The Post’s IT manager, said: “We have double-checked our whole system and there is nothing wrong with it. We have not been hacked.”

“I can only guess that it is that [Licadho’s] system that was hacked, not ours.”