A series of cyber attacks have been launched against Thailand’s government websites in response to the recent passage of the new Computer Crimes Bill which will strengthen state’s censorship power and online surveillance.
Since the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the junta’s rubber-stamps, approved the amendment to the controversial Computer Crimes Act on 16 December, various government websites have been subsequently shut down because of cyber attacks.
Various actors has claimed to be responsible for the attacks including Thailand Internet Firewall’s Facebook page and the Anonymous, the worldwide loose network of hackers. The attacks came in form of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources.
The attacked websites belongs to Police Region 1 Training Centre, Thai Government, Royal Gazette, Ministry of Defense, Royal Thai Navy, and etc. Most of the websites are currently back to service whilst some remain unavailable.
On 16 December, the Anonymous posted the budget document of the National Intelligence Agency and claimed that they hacked the NIA to get the document.
A concern has been raised among Thai netizens that people’s data might be revealed in public as a part of the attacks. Therefore, Thai Netizen Network (TNN) tweeted a message urging the Anonymous to avoid attacking on people data.
“Thanks for support, #Anonymous. You made your point. Further hack may harm Thai citizens more than Junta. Please consider avoiding citizen data? Thanks,” reads TNN twitter.
The main page of Ministry of ICT during the attack. The website is currently back on service.