UPDATE: 35-year old James Raj has been charged this morning with carrying out unauthorised modifications under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. He is being represented by prominent human rights lawyer M Ravi. A Linkedin profile for one James Raj lists “Computer Security at Anonymous” as his current job.
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It seems The Messiah would stop at nothing if its demands are not met.
Officials confirmed Friday, 8 November, 2013, that two websites – that belonging to the Singapore Prime Minister and President – have been hacked and defaced.
Not surprising, since this incident came after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told local media the day before that authorities would spare no effort to hunt down anyone who poses a threat to the nation’s cyber security.
While it’s clear The Messiah is a lulzfag – someone who attacks whoever they want for the sake of lulz, few questions pertaining to the hacktivist’s identity remains unanswered. Who exactly is The Messiah? Is The Messiah really part of the Anonymous collective as it claimed to be? And, more importantly, is The Messiah a Singaporean citizen?
Based on the hacker’s comments and lingo used, chances are that whoever is behind the Guy Fawkes mask could very well be a Singaporean and is simply borrowing the Anonymous’ brand to bolster his/her credentials as a hacktivist.
Certainly, it takes talent and effort to hack into a system, website or webpage, but the traditional path of an Anonymous assault, as the world knows, is to overwhelm and shock a complex system like the FBI and CIA with DDOS attacks that the entire system goes down for a while. Not scrawl nasty messages on its victims’ webpages after successfully hacking into them.
Let’s say The Messiah is not a Singaporean citizen. Then how is it possible that the hacktivist knows what ‘jiak liao bi’ means and the identities of Tony Tan, Sun Ho and Ridhwan Azman, unless he/she has been constantly keeping tabs on the Singapore Government and reading up on Singaporean news?
Whatever the case is, this incident highlights the need for a tightened cyber security system and policing team. Not unless the Government thinks its current systems are tight enough to prevent another Anonymous member from hacking.
Next question: How will the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore enhance its internet security capabilities to ensure that Government and related websites remain secured in this internet day and age?
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