Cyber attack cripples Free Malaysia Today
(FMT) KUALA LUMPUR: A massive cyber attack on the Free Malaysia Today web site over the past week has disrupted operations and left readers without access to news articles on the site. Legal action is now being contemplated against the Malaysian website and the hosting company from which the attacks came.
Free Malaysia Today management said: “We have identified the attackers and traced the attacks as coming through a popular Malaysian cyber forum based on servers located in Kuala Lumpur.
“We view these attacks seriously and are prepared to take all measures necessary to stop the attackers. We have engaged cyber-lawyers to look into the matter and a complaint to the Communications and Multimedia Commission is being prepared.”
As a result of the attacks editors of Free Malaysia Today set up a temporary mirror at http://freemalaysiatoday.wordpress.com for use whenever the main site became unavailable.
The attackers used hundreds of thousands of requests to Free Malaysia Today servers, launched from the forum every time a reader visited the forum site. “Every time a reader at the forum clicked on a page, 100 requests to Free Malaysia Today were made,” said a site executive. The massive number of requests swamped the site’s servers, leaving them unable to serve the news pages to legitimate viewers.
The spurious requests frequently paralysed the servers and also affected news operations. Editors were unable to update the site with current news. On Wednesday, the new MCA line-up could not be reported because the editors themselves could not reach the site.
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