Hacker group says attack on Malaysia to ‘wash corruption away’

By Shannon Teoh

June 14, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — The hacker group known as Anonymous has warned of an attack on the official website of the Malaysian government in an act of protest against Internet censorship.

“The internet is here for freedom, without fear of government interference. We are obligated to act fast and have no mercy.

“For rules were meant to be broken. And corruption was meant to be washed away and forgiven. Now we will wash your corruption away so be prepared,” the group said.

The so-called “hacktivists” earlier announced that the attack targeting www.malaysia.gov.my — known as “Operation Malaysia” — will take place on Thursday at 3.30am Malaysian time.

Anonymous has taken credit for other attacks such as in December 2010 in response to pressure against Wikileaks, to stop the constroversial website from publishing classified United States diplomatic cables.

In retaliation it brought down MasterCard and Visa’s websites and staged attacks on other online commerce sites perceived to be anti-Wikileaks such as Amazon and PayPal.

The statement was also uploaded to video-sharing site YouTube, where it is read out by a digitally-generated voice.

It is unclear whether any participant in the attack will be located in Malaysia but a report in international newspaper Epoch Times, the group called for hackers to use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in order to encrypt their network connections.

The planned attack comes despite yesterday’s arrest of 32 suspects in Turkey after the group also cited censorship for attacks on government sites there.