Anonymous Begins Cyber War on Singapore

Layanne Malluhi,

Correspondent (Asia: Far East)

 

The official website of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was defaced with headlines like: “It’s great to be Singaporean today” and “ANONYMOUS SG WAS HERE BIATCH.” This took place only one day after the minister had vowed to track down anyone who attacks the Singaporean technological network. This act was performed by the activist group ‘Anonymous.’

The Prime Minister has threatened to go after Anonymous, who had only a week ago revealed their plans to wage a cyber war against the Singaporean government. They called for more Internet freedom and less censorship in Singaporean media outlets. They demanded this through a YouTube video released on October 31st. The video was of a someone speaking in a digitized voice wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.

And thus began the hackings. A reporter’s blog from the Strait Times newspaper was hacked, and more hackings were threatened if the demands for more Internet freedom were not addressed.

The recent hacking was made public by a Facebook post, and the section that was hacked was immediately taken offline. Social media sites are being used in Singapore to have political debates, as the media is believed to be censored and is extremely pro-government.

Infocomm Development Authority, a government institution in Singapore, is said to have been investigating the incident. They released a statement saying: “”The PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) main website is still working, and we are working to restore the page that has been compromised.”

The Today Newspaper in Singapore reported that Lee had responded thus: “Our IT network, the Internet, our communications have become an essential part of our business and our lives now and, therefore, when somebody threatens to do harm to it… we take that very seriously and we will spare no effort to try and track down the culprits and if we can find him, we will bring him to justice and he will be dealt with severely.”

Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons