Malaysia braces for cyberattacks

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia  – Malaysian officials said Wednesday they were bracing for hacker attacks on government websites by a group which sabotaged Turkish sites last week to protest against Internet censorship.

Internet activists Anonymous warned on a website that they would target Malaysia’s government portal www.Malaysia.gov.my beginning at 1930 GMT on Wednesday.

“We are aware of the hack threat and we believe that the threat is real. We have alerted the relevant parties and government agencies,” said Husin Jazri, head of the government’s CyberSecurity Malaysia agency.

The attack plan was posted on a website and spotted by Finnish computer software company F-Secure on Tuesday, which raised the alarm via Twitter.

The hackers explained in a YouTube clip the rationale for the attack, claiming that Malaysia’s censorship was eroding human rights.

“We fear that if you make further decisions to take away human freedom, we are obligated to act fast, and have no mercy,” it said in the video.

The threat follows an order by Malaysia’s communications and multimedia industry regulator to Internet service providers last week to block 10 file and video-sharing websites that violated copyright laws, annoying users who regularly download pirated content.