Hackers have disrupted Malaysian government websites, authorities said Thursday, following threats by anti-censorship "Anonymous" activists and a cyberattack on the CIA by an allied group.
The strike against 51 government websites, which disrupted at least 41 of them according to Malaysia's Internet watchdog, came after the Anonymous group sabotaged Turkish sites last week to protest against Internet censorship.
Malaysian Consumer Affairs Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob denounced the attacks on the government sites and denied allegations the Southeast Asian nation was attempting to curb Internet freedom.
"We are not like China. There is no restrictions. You can see people criticise the government on the Internet. We are very open," he said.
Malaysian authorities had Wednesday braced themselves for cyber attacks after Anonymous warned on a website that it would target the government portal www.Malaysia.gov.my.
The action followed a decision last week by the nation's Internet watchdog, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to block 10 popular file-sharing websites in an effort to combat piracy.
Anonymous explained the rationale for the attack in a YouTube clip, saying that Malaysia's decision represented an erosion of 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 MCMC said the attacks on websites with the .gov.my domain started shortly before midnight Wednesday and lasted several hours, but appeared to have caused little damage.
"We do not expect the overall recovery to these websites to take long as most websites have already recovered from the attack," it said.
The commission said it would work with enforcement agencies, security experts and service providers to monitor the situation.
S.M. Mohamed Idris, president of the Consumers Association of Penang, said that by banning the 10 websites, the authorities had violated the guarantee on Internet freedom.
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