A screen capture shows the message DragonForce Malaysia left on an Indian website that it defaced.
KUALA LUMPUR (June 15): A group calling itself DragonForce Malaysia said it has defaced the websites of the Delhi University and the Nanded-Waghala City Municipal Corporation as part of a cyberattack campaign against India over an anti-Islam slur by a politician from the ruling party there.
On its Twitter page, the activist group showed that it was able to inject pages into the websites of the Indian university and local council, to convey its objection to the politician’s remarks about Prophet Muhammad.
“Another Government of India & University India Hacked And Leaked By Dragonforce Malaysia. Database Incoming Boom Boom Boom,” the group wrote on Twitter.
Visits to the sites listed showed that they have been replaced with a message from DragonForce Malaysia over its Ops Patuk campaign against Indian websites over the religious slur.
The group also announced on Twitter that it was able to insert malicious code in some of the websites.
The attacks were just the latest by the Malaysian group. According to the Times of India, the group previously claimed credit for defacing 70 government and private websites in India, leaving audio clips and texts saying: “For you is your religion, for me is my religion”.
The targets of the attack reportedly comprised a diverse range of Indian websites, from the Indian Embassy in Israel and National Institute of Agriculture Extension Management to Delhi Public School and other websites belonging to academic institutions.
The campaign was launched through the forums of the group’s website. Members who successfully took down websites opened new threads on the forums detailing which websites they took down along with screenshots of the defaced sites.
Earlier this month, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Nupur Sharma caused a global storm with her remarks insulting Prophet Muhammad, triggering formal diplomatic protests from Muslim countries worldwide including Malaysia against the Indian government.
This forced the Modi administration into damage control with attempts to downplay her comments as her personal opinion.
The controversy has also led to protests in various parts of the world, including deadly riots in India. — Malay Mail