Advertisement

Malaysian websites hacked after flag blunder

Group apparently responding to the Indonesian flag being printed upside down recently in the South East Asia Games booklet

Reading Time:1 minute
Why you can trust SCMP
Photo: Alamy Stock Photo

Thirty-three Malaysian websites have been de­faced yesterday, accor­ding to CyberSecurity Malay­sia.

Advertisement

“The incident is real and we are investigating, monitoring and working closely with other agencies to mitigate it,” said CyberSecurity Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab.

Some of the websites – blogs which are relatively unknown, and are not affiliated to any official body or large corporation – were defaced by the hacker group ExtremeCrew and featured the official souvenir booklet of the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games 2017, which erroneously carried the Indonesian flag upside down.

The group posted “Bendera Negaraku Bukanlah Mainan” – which translates to “My national flag is not a plaything” – on these websites, while the Indonesian patriotic song Tanah Air Beta played in the background.

Malaysian courier Easyparcel.my was also a casualty although it seemed to be hit by a different hacker group later in the day.

Advertisement

Kuala Lumpur has since apologised to Jakarta for the flag error after the issue was raised by Indonesian Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi on Saturday.

Advertisement