Take Anonymous Malaysia threat seriously, expert cautions

The possible cyber threat by a group that called themselves Anonymous Malaysia should be taken seriously, said cyber security specialist, Fazli Azran.

Fazli who is also Open Application Web Security Project (OWASP) Malaysia Chapter head advised for immediate action to be taken by all system, network and safety administrators.

Through OWASP Malaysia Facebook page, Fazli said updates should be done immediately to avoid from being hacked.

On Tuesday, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau urged all entities under the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) to beef up cyber security to protect themselves against hackers.

On Monday, Anonymous Malaysia in an eight-minute video announced a cyber war against the Malaysian government.

The video uploaded on YouTube World of Buzz showed the group declaring to cripple Malaysian web portals.

In the video, the group had threatened to launch a cyber warfare on August 29 and 30 from 6pm to 11pm. Web portals using the domain name gov.my and edu.my are said to be targets but this is not because of its weak defence system but because of its importance to the Malaysian government. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak were among those said to be the main target of this threat as the hackers are urging the premier to step down to avoid any cyber attack in Malaysia. The targeted web portals include 1MDB website, NajibRazak.com, The Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Malaysia Royal Police. The group also threatened to launch attack on 150 other web portals in 48 hours if their demands were not met. This was not the first time the hacker group had threatened a cyber attack on web portals in Malaysia. Website defacement or crippling of a web site happens almost every month on gov.my and edu.my domains. The largest attack took place in March this year when 39 web portals with the domain gov.my and 107 portals with the domain edu.my had its main page changed. In June however the number of defacement activity dropped to 15.