SINGAPORE, Nov 12 — Singapore prosecutors charged six men with offences including the defacing of a town council website in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s district and the spraying of slogans linked to an international hacker group.
James Raj, 35, was charged with causing unauthorised modifications of contents on the Ang Mo Kio municipal website by posting an image of a Guy Fawkes mask, the symbol of the hacker group Anonymous. Another five men were charged separately with vandalism for spraying slogans linked to Anonymous including the pavement outside a shopping mall November 5.
The charges follow cyber attacks earlier this month on websites across Southeast Asia for which Anonymous claimed responsibility. A week after Lee’s town council site was defaced allegedly by Raj, who signed off as The Messiah, the city state’s Internet regulator said subpages on the Prime Minister’s Office and the president’s websites were compromised.
“I can’t confirm if he’s linked to Anonymous or if he’s the Messiah at this stage,” Raj’s lawyer M. Ravi told reporters today.
Raj appeared in Singapore Subordinate Courts and didn’t enter a plea to the charge under the city’s computer misuse and cybersecurity laws. He faces a fine of as much as S$10,000 (RM25,600) and a prison term of as much as three years, if convicted as a first-time offender. He was also charged with illicit drug consumption.
Caning penalty
The five men, aged 21 to 26, who were charged with vandalism also didn’t enter pleas and were granted bail of S$15,000 each. If convicted, the five could be fined as much as S$2,000 and/or jailed for as long as three years. They could also be caned three to eight times.
Anonymous Philippines said on November 4 that it infiltrated 115 government websites ahead of a planned demonstration outside congress in Quezon City as part of a global “Million Mask March,” coinciding with Guy Fawkes Day in the UK. The mask of Fawkes, has become a symbol of the movement.
In Singapore, a website owned by the city’s biggest newspaper publisher was temporarily shut after being hacked on November 1. A video uploaded on the YouTube website showed a person in a Guy Fawkes mask threatening to bring down Singapore’s infrastructure to protest Internet regulations.
Singapore government agencies were put on alert for possible attacks and boosted their cybersecurity after the threats.
Lee said in a November 6 video posted on his People’s Action Party Facebook page that he took the threats “very seriously.”
“We will spare no effort to try and track down the culprits,” Lee said. “If we can find him, we will bring him to justice and he will be dealt with severely. You may think you’re anonymous but we will make that extra effort to find out who you are.” — Bloomberg
