KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — The Sarawak Report whistleblower site is down around the world, with its editor Clare Rewcastle Brown suspecting a hacking job.
A message pops up on the London-based Sarawak Report website, which has been reporting on the controversy surrounding 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), saying: “503 Service Unavailable”.
“It’s usually hacking (that) causes it,” Rewcastle Brown told Malay Mail Online.
“Not sure what they think to gain by it, but when people are up in the UK, they [should be] able to sort,” she added.
Goh Su Gim, security advisor for the Asian branch of Finland-based computer security company F-Secure, said a 503 message simply meant that servers were not available.
“Most likely, Sarawak Report themselves took it down. They could have been hacked and they took it down, or it could have been temporary issues and they took it down,” Goh told Malay Mail Online.
He added that he had tried accessing the blog from US and Singapore, to no avail.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said last Sunday it had ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to block local access to Sarawak Report, pending the completion of an investigation on 1MDB, for carrying articles on the controversy surrounding the state-owned fund that it described as unverified news.
