Hackers target Myanmar federal government websites in coup protest
18 February, 2021
Hackers attacked military-run authorities' websites in Myanmar on Thursday (Feb 18) as a cyber battle erupted after authorities turn off the web for a fourth right night.
A group called Myanmar Hackers disrupted multiple government websites including the Central Bank, Myanmar Military's propaganda site, state-go broadcaster MRTV, the Interface Authority, Food and Drug Administration.
The maneuver comes a evening after thousands of people rallied in the united states to protest against a military coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government from power earlier this month.
"We happen to be fighting for justice in Myanmar", the hacking group stated on its Facebook web page.
"It is just like mass protesting of folks before government websites."
Cybersecurity expert Matt Warren from Australia's RMIT University said it was likely the purpose of the hacking was first to generate publicity.
"The sorts of attacks they might be undertaking happen to be denial of program attacks or defacing websites which is called hacktivism", he told AFP.
"The impact will be potentially limited but what they happen to be doing is raising awareness."
Another Internet shutdown started out in Myanmar at about 1am in Thursday (2.30am Singapore time), according to NetBlocks, a Britain-based group that monitors net outages around the world.
It said Internet connectivity had dropped to simply 21 % of ordinary levels.
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