Myanmar press council to discuss surge in cyber attacks on media

Published on Thursday, 07 February 2013 17:00

The Interim Press Council will on Saturday discuss the recent spate of cyber attacks on private media, following a formal complaint from Eleven Media Group earlier this week, it said.

The meeting will take place at 1pm at its Yangon office.

The council will address issues raised by Eleven Media’s complaint, including a request that it raise the issue of cyber attacks on media with the president and the defence services chief, one council member said.

In its complaint, Eleven Media called on the council to take measures against cyber attacks on media, pointing to several attacks on its website as well as the Facebook page of The Voice Weekly Journal, which was removed after hackers managed to take control of its administration accounts on Monday.

Copies of the complaint were forwarded to the president, parliamentary speakers, the defence services commander-in-chief, the parliamentary committee for rule of law and stability, domestic media groups and foreign media associations, including Asia News Network, Reporters without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The attacks on media websites and their Facebook pages that began last month with an attack on Eleven Media’s news website by a group that called itself the “Red Army”. The group has been identified as combination of six different hacker groups: Blink Hacker Group, Myanmar Hack3rs Unite4m, Myanmar Cyber Army, Black Hack Area, Myanmar Cyber Defense Army, and Cyber Vampire Team.

The Voice Weekly Journal's Facebook page was hacked on Monday by two hacker groups, MMCF and Anonymous Myanmar, resulting in the removal of the Facebook page.

Hackers also launched a cyber-attack on the Facebook page of Eleven Media Group last night, but they were prevented from taking control of the administration accounts, Eleven Media’s information technology staff said.

They said that a group calling itself the “Myanmar Muslim Cyber Force” managed to change the cover photo on the Facebook page and was trying to gain control of the administration accounts when they blocked them.

Eleven Media Group chief editor Wai Phyo said the recent attack provides more evidence about who is behind the slew of cyber attacks. The writing style and word choice is becoming more familiar, he said, noting that the style is similar to that used by online news site Myanmar Express. Myanmar Express has been described as a propaganda tool for attacking the opposition and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi.