I just read an article in TheStar saying that the hacktivist group – Anonymous – has scheduled an attack for a Malaysian government website later tomorrow. The article claims not to know why the hacktivist group is targeting the Malaysian government. The reporters are quite possibly daft if they cannot even hazard a guess.
I might hazard a pretty obvious guess – our censorship of 10 very important file-sharing websites, particularly The Pirate Bay (TPB).
Since the website runs on he .Net framework on top of IIS7, my advice to the government would be to call up Microsoft support immediately and get their people down to do all necessary, either to strengthen the security of the site, to go on the defense, or to stay around to collect useful forensics.
I wonder what the government was thinking when it asked the ISPs to block access to the list of file-sharing websites. It is just such a blatant abuse of power on the Internet that it invites an organised response. It is a threat on Internet freedom and hacktivists are very vigilant against such things.
I would have advocated a legal response, by local users mounting a legal action against the government. However, this hacktivism response is just to be expected as well.
Good luck, Malaysia.
Update: Turns out I was spot-on – it was the censorship. Our reporters are clueless.
