On the eve of an election, the Malaysian web comes under attack
(The Verge) – Access suspects the ruling party is instituting the blocks using deep packet inspection, with the assistance of the (supposedly independent) ISPs.
Opposition party websites and Facebook pages are falling to DDoS and web censorship
Malaysia holds its national election this Sunday, pitting the ruling National Front party against an unusually strong People’s Alliance coalition in what observers are calling the most closely contested race in the nation’s history. But as citizens head to the polls, the country has seen a flood of ISP blocks and DDoS actions against opposition sites and independent media.
The most visible actions are DDoS attacks, a technique that floods sites with bogus traffic, making them inaccessible to normal users. It’s a technique often aimed at opposition parties in the days leading up to an election. DDoS mitigation service Cloudflare told The Verge it has seen several news organization come under attack in the past week, and that the vast majority of the actions have been Layer 7 attacks originating from within the country. It strongly suggests that whoever’s behind the attack is local.
OPPOSITION PARTY FACEBOOK PAGES WERE ALSO TARGETED BY THE BLOCKS
Alongside the denial-of-service attacks, Malaysian ISPs have instituted a more sophisticated kind of web censorship. An Access Now report detailed five Malaysian ISPs that had begun blocking domains, simply refusing to serve requests made to certain web addresses. After early complaints, ISPs also blocked specific content within those domains that was critical of the standing regime.
Read more at: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/4/4299844/before-election-malaysian-web-comes-under-attack
