An Alert for Australian Admins
Growing political angst between Australia and Indonesia is starting to be played out online. Tit-for-tat political cartoons were printed over the last week following the Australian decision to temporarily accept a number of West Papuans as refugees and the political situation has been described as 'difficult' by the Indonesian President.
Online, things are starting to warm up with an increase in the number of attacks against Australian sites from groups claiming to be Indonesian, or Indonesian affiliated. In amongst the normal attacks against state and federal government sites, targeting of politicians and attacks on e-commerce sites there is an increasing number of Indonesian-aligned groups claiming the hacks.
What has been hit
Indonesian hackers have claimed defacements of sites for an Australian Senator, a South Australian government site and a number of commercial sites. Leaving political messages, threats, and general abuse, the attackers appear to be nationalists with a number of the attacks leaving an extract from the Indonesian anthem 'Hiduplah Indonesia Raya' (Long live Indonesia the Great).
Most of the attacks appear to be simple defacements but there is some concern a number of the sites compromised have had sensitive information stolen and the attackers continue to have unrestricted access to these sites.
Response
At this stage there do not appear to be any return attacks against Indonesian sites by Australian groups or sympathisers. The only recent attacks against Indonesian domains appear to be by well known groups from outside the region.
Site administrators contacted in response to these attacks have yet to acknowledge the attacks.
4 April 2006
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