Burma: hackers’ response to internet shutdowns

Face the repression, the mobilization does not weaken in Burma. It took another turn at the instigation of a group of hackers posing as the “Burmese Hackers”. Several government sites, managed by the military junta that orchestrated the coup, have been targeted. This is the case for the sites of the Central Bank, the official page of the Burmese army, the site of the public television channel MRTV, that of the port authority as well as that of the food security agency. and sanitary.This is a direct response to the internet cuts imposed by the authorities for the fourth night in a row. “We are fighting for justice in Burma,” the hacker group said on its Facebook page. “It’s like a mass protest in front of government websites,” he said. The cyber offensive comes after protests that gathered tens of thousands across the country on Wednesday to protest the military coup that toppled the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this month.

Hacktivism

Matt Warren, a cybersecurity expert at Australian University RMIT in Melbourne, said the attack appeared to be intended to raise the profile of the protest movement. “The kind of attacks they engage in is denial of service or disfigurement of sites, which are” hacktivism “,” acts of hacking motivated by activism, he explains to Agence France -Hurry. “The impact is potentially limited, but it helps publicize their cause.”

Another internet cut was observed at 1 a.m. Thursday in Burma (local time), according to NetBlocks, a UK-based internet restrictions observatory. Internet connections have fallen to 21% of their usual level, the observatory said, while UN rapporteur Tom Andrews said he feared renewed violence on Wednesday, after being informed of the sending of soldiers to Yangon .