A wave of cyberattacks has shattered more than 70 public and private websites in India. Activist group DragonForce Malaysia has claimed responsibility for the campaign, saying it was revenge for a negative statement about the Prophet Muhammad by a member of India’s ruling political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). DragonForce Malaysia’s exploits are the latest example of the resurgence of hacktivism, social or political hacking that has taken place in recent months.
of Sharma supposedly Islamophobic commentsmade in a televised debate in late May, sparked protests in India and sparked diplomatic tensions with predominantly Muslim countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.
This tension has apparently now spread to cyberspace, with DragonForce Malaysia launching widespread “injection” attacks, damaging government websites and bringing other sites offline in the last 48 hours. Affected sites include the Indian Embassy in Israel and the National Institute of Agriculture, as well as educational facilities such as the Delhi Public School.
Injection attacks are cases where hackers inject a bug into a website’s system to allow them to make changes, said Srinivas Kodali, a cyber researcher in India’s free software coalition.
No data has been leaked so far, explains Bharat Mistry, technical director of the United Kingdom and Ireland at Trend Micro. But, he says, it is worth noting the ease with which so many organizations have been attacked. “This should be a wake-up call for India to say, ‘We need to step up our security and take it a little more seriously,'” he said. “If the first phase of this was just disfigurement, where could it go if there was a more intense attack that was more distributed and with more intent to destroy?”
DragonForce Malaysia behind cyberattacks in India
DragonForce Malaysia became famous last year in Israel when leads a series of cyberattacks against Israeli targets in June and July.
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The group is compared to the high-profile hacktivist group Anonymous and claims to hack “Based on ethics and principles that bring good.” DragonForce Malaysia is active on social media and is vocal in its support for the protests in India.
He is known for his work with other cybercrime gangs, including the T3 Dimension Team, Syntax Brute Code Malaysia and the PANOC Team. Earlier this week, her latest campaign, OpsBedilReloaded, took place in April and targeted several organizations in Israel, amid escalating tensions between Palestinians and Israelis. This commotion caused warning from security company Radware.
The gang is following in the footsteps of other hacktivists, many of whom have been thrown back into the spotlight as a result of their activities in support of Ukraine during the war with Russia.
A Radware report released last week noted a 125% increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the first quarter of 2022. “These attacks were largely triggered by a threat landscape turbocharged by geopolitical instability. , hacktivists, national threat actors and a focus on exploiting newly discovered vulnerabilities, ”the report said.
But the organizations targeted by DragonForce Malaysia, many of which are small in nature, are not responding to the gang’s altruistic message, Kodali said. “The websites they’ve targeted include several farming teams,” he said. “I think in the global world of hacktivism, the idea is to persecute the strong, but they are persecuting the powerless.
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India hit by wave of hacktivist cyberattacks from DragonForce Malaysia
