Case

Hackers deface Malaysia Airlines Website

In 2015, the Web site of Malaysia Airlines was defaced by the hacker group who referenced Islamic State and claimed to be from the "Lizard Squad", the best known for its attacks last fall on Sony's PlayStation Network.

The site's home page www.malaysiaairlines.com was briefly replaced with an image of a lizard smoking a pipe and the statement and the text of “Hacked by Lizard Squad - Official Cyber Caliphate."

When visited the website, a professional-sounding rap which apparently released on Christmas Day will play automatically in the background.

It also carried the headline "404 - Plane Not Found", which is an apparent reference to the airlines' puzzling loss of flight MH370 last year with 239 people aboard.

Media reports said that versions of the takeover in some regions include the wording "ISIS will prevail".

Soon after the attack, they would like to point out that “Malaysia Airlines is lying about user data not being compromised.” The hackers said that they planned to release "loot", such as the stolen data that found on the server hosting the Malaysia Airlines website. As part of a teaser, it posted a screenshot that appeared to show Malaysia Airline customer travel itineraries. But, it is unclear why Malaysia Airlines was targeted.

Newsy, T. (Director). (2015). Malaysia Airlines Hack: Lizard Squad, ISIS Involved? [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRUF0SZOZug

To against this case, Malaysia provided the Computer Crimes Act, 1997. This act was passed to provide for offences relating to misuse of the computer. Under Section 3, 5 and 6, it addresses unauthorised access, unauthorised modifications and wrongful communication. It also applied to any person even when the offences were committed outside Malaysia. In my opinion, to prevent the occurrence of this incident, Malaysian government can consider to revision and amendments the current cyberlaw by increasing the fine for this type of offences. Besides that, the company also can build up a strong firewall system to protect their company website from hacking and defacing.

Copyright: Stuff