Malaysia Ready for Battle With Anonymous

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Action for Freedom — 5 Comments

Malaysia heightens security on its government website to prepare for an alleged cyber attack by hacker group Anonymous. The police chief reported Wednesday that they would “track down the activists” responsible.

The attack is codenamed “Operation Malaysia,” and Anonymous announced Monday that they would attack the Malaysian Government‘s online portal starting Wednesday at 19:30 GMT in retaliation for the government’s censorship of the Wikileaks site.

“We have received word of this threat. There are many agencies involved in this and we will get to the bottom of this,” Malaysian police chief Ismail Omar told Reuters.

“Investigation needs to be done and we need to protect our systems at the same time.”

Anonymous gained notoriety when they temporarily crippled PayPal and Mastercard for cutting off the financial services of Wikileaks. The Anonymous group has also attacked sites in Syria, Tunisia, Egypt and India for similar acts of internet censorship.

In another posting on pastebin.com, Anonymous said Malaysia’s censorship of films and television shows and its blocking of file-sharing websites amounted to a denial of basic human rights.

“The Internet is here for freedom, without fear of government interference,” the group said in a posting. “We fear that if you make further decisions to take away human freedom. We are obligated to act fast and have no mercy.”

Officials in Malaysia had originally planned to set up an internet filter back in 2009. Foreign investors and public outcry forced the authorities to stop the implementation of the filter.

A vibrant Internet culture has contributed to political challenges facing the Malaysian government, which tightly controls mainstream media and has used sedition laws and imprisonment without trial to prosecute bloggers.