Tick, tock...
Tick, tock..
The clock strikes 7. And a half of course, at GMT.
The buzzing stream of activity hurls its way into the core of the site known as malaysia.gov.my.
Most of the Malaysians were asleep at that time. Apart from some late night city dwellers roaming in Mamak or the night clubs. Of course, not to be forgotten, the bikers, also known as "Mat Rempits", on their suicide trips to prove their mettle against each other. And one always wonder why is the blood bank running low most of the time.
Tonight, was a bit special. The hackers were looking for something political. Something to put their hands on the people of power in Malaysia. It was meant to be political from the first place. Featuring hackers from various countries, the site, and the country, was bound for doom.
Or so they thought.
The first obstacle was language. The first wave of attack from Europe came to a halt. Fresh stream of tweets flew around the globe. "Why the heck are we hacking into a site with such foreign language where no one really learns it out of the country?"
And perhaps the Malaysian hackers, who preferred to be called the locals, weren't adequately competent. They blame it on the education system. It took them more of a translation task in the team, whilst their mastery of the language weren't exactly top notch. And the site's English was mostly a direct translation from Bahasa Melayu. It didn't make it any better.
After some time, they finally got through, with the password "Nasi Lemak". The hackers learnt from the locals that it was a delicacy. Maybe they should try that the next time they come to Malaysia. Put that on the top of the "to-eat" list.
Once they were in, it was found out that the site was based from a cheap server provider. Time was wasted to hack in directly to the site. The server provider would have been an easier prey instead. They figured that blogger.com would have a tighter security than that server provider.
Next was the access and retrieval. It was the most torturing night of all. The bandwidth was very slow. The locals told them it was the norm. Malaysian government has an extremely low bandwidth, perhaps just 1 Mbps. No wonder its always "Server Down", with its limited bandwidth, during their local University application, National Service inquiry, etc. The hackers thought that the Malaysia government was very brilliant, providing such a natural obstacle from hacks. They're in it, but definitely hard to get anything out of there. The hackers were all restless.
Slowly but surely, everything went through. Language wasn't really the main problem, but there weren't anything much inside. There wasn't much of the Economic Transformation Programme in it. Or any government secret revolving around the project. No one really knows who gets the job. The financial accounts don't tally, so was the budget. In fact, it doesn't make any sense at all. Malaysia's server network wasn't extensive nor connected to other agencies. It seems that each agencies had a tender for its own, at surprisingly exorbitant price for the various low cost servers and services.
Finally, the hackers came to a unanimous decision. It was too much of a hassle to break in. Malaysia's system must have either been too top-notched, or someone had blotched it. either way, they did not get what they were looking for. No more political ploys. All they could do is just some amateur work: Disrupt the site and left their mark on the site.
It was a hell of a night.
They knew they should have targeted Singapore instead.
*Sigh*
*** This post is a piece of fan-fiction written by the author, inspired by the recent news of attack on malaysia.gov.my. Of course, fiction will remain fiction, but it sometimes allows us to explore the possibilites of what could happen should it really did happen.
For more on the news, you can read up in The Star: Hacker Group to attack Malaysian Govt portal.
Tick, tock..
The clock strikes 7. And a half of course, at GMT.
The buzzing stream of activity hurls its way into the core of the site known as malaysia.gov.my.
Most of the Malaysians were asleep at that time. Apart from some late night city dwellers roaming in Mamak or the night clubs. Of course, not to be forgotten, the bikers, also known as "Mat Rempits", on their suicide trips to prove their mettle against each other. And one always wonder why is the blood bank running low most of the time.
Tonight, was a bit special. The hackers were looking for something political. Something to put their hands on the people of power in Malaysia. It was meant to be political from the first place. Featuring hackers from various countries, the site, and the country, was bound for doom.
Or so they thought.
The first obstacle was language. The first wave of attack from Europe came to a halt. Fresh stream of tweets flew around the globe. "Why the heck are we hacking into a site with such foreign language where no one really learns it out of the country?"
And perhaps the Malaysian hackers, who preferred to be called the locals, weren't adequately competent. They blame it on the education system. It took them more of a translation task in the team, whilst their mastery of the language weren't exactly top notch. And the site's English was mostly a direct translation from Bahasa Melayu. It didn't make it any better.
After some time, they finally got through, with the password "Nasi Lemak". The hackers learnt from the locals that it was a delicacy. Maybe they should try that the next time they come to Malaysia. Put that on the top of the "to-eat" list.
Once they were in, it was found out that the site was based from a cheap server provider. Time was wasted to hack in directly to the site. The server provider would have been an easier prey instead. They figured that blogger.com would have a tighter security than that server provider.
Next was the access and retrieval. It was the most torturing night of all. The bandwidth was very slow. The locals told them it was the norm. Malaysian government has an extremely low bandwidth, perhaps just 1 Mbps. No wonder its always "Server Down", with its limited bandwidth, during their local University application, National Service inquiry, etc. The hackers thought that the Malaysia government was very brilliant, providing such a natural obstacle from hacks. They're in it, but definitely hard to get anything out of there. The hackers were all restless.
Slowly but surely, everything went through. Language wasn't really the main problem, but there weren't anything much inside. There wasn't much of the Economic Transformation Programme in it. Or any government secret revolving around the project. No one really knows who gets the job. The financial accounts don't tally, so was the budget. In fact, it doesn't make any sense at all. Malaysia's server network wasn't extensive nor connected to other agencies. It seems that each agencies had a tender for its own, at surprisingly exorbitant price for the various low cost servers and services.
Finally, the hackers came to a unanimous decision. It was too much of a hassle to break in. Malaysia's system must have either been too top-notched, or someone had blotched it. either way, they did not get what they were looking for. No more political ploys. All they could do is just some amateur work: Disrupt the site and left their mark on the site.
It was a hell of a night.
They knew they should have targeted Singapore instead.
*Sigh*
*** This post is a piece of fan-fiction written by the author, inspired by the recent news of attack on malaysia.gov.my. Of course, fiction will remain fiction, but it sometimes allows us to explore the possibilites of what could happen should it really did happen.
For more on the news, you can read up in The Star: Hacker Group to attack Malaysian Govt portal.
