Ceylon Today Editorial

It s About Time We Woke Up

 30 August 2016

What the rest of the world comes to know and fear as cyber terrorism or internet vigilantes such as the controversial hacker groups like Anonymous, to us Sri Lankans is a humdrum bunch of computer jilmart. We simply do not care about our cyber privacy or what lies, information and truths could be unveiled in the covered up annals of the Sri Lankan cyber waste bins. Our cyber security and internet privacy is nil; at stages of non-existence.

Recently, President Maithripala Sirisena's official website www.president.gov.lk was hacked by an unidentified group of hackers. The hackers had posted a 'welcome note' on the main face of the President's website and had made several demands that were directed at President Sirisena himself.

The hackers who dauntlessly identified themselves as 'Sri Lankan Youth' had demanded that the government reconsider the decision to hold the GCE Advanced Level Examination in April. Furthermore, the hackers had demanded to hold another presidential election and the removal of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for his 'irresponsible conduct'. The demands fell on deaf ears considering the government did not even bother to make an official statement about it.

The attack was condemned right and left, of course but the government's lack of response is disturbing. The lack of interest from the public is even more so. The threats might be full of hot air, the demands resonating political influence, but it does not mean that proper precautionary methods should not be looked into.

Hacking is not necessarily a bad thing, let alone it being labelled as a criminal offence. There are ethical hackers as well as unethical hackers. Ethical hackers are driven by a sense of overwhelming sense of morality that drives them to do good, revealing hidden data on corrupt government officials, financial frauds hidden in terabytes of metadata are the manna for ethical hackers. They are the modern day cyber vigilantes. They are the watchdogs of the internet.

However, like the proverbial particle of cow dung in the milk pot, there is the bad side to hacking the spammers, the identity thieves, the online stalkers, etc and etc. The list is endless. Sri Lanka has had experience with almost all these hackers in the past. In 2013, the Sri Lankan Media Centre for National Security website was hacked and its main page was defaced by a hacker known as 'Game Over'. In 2014, a global hack – a conglomerate of several international hacker groups simultaneously targeted 129 vulnerable local websites which included the Ministry of Higher Education, Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints Regarding Missing Persons and the Prime Minister's Office websites.

However, the most recent attack was different from the norm. The attack feigned an attack of general misbehaviour and attempted to send out a message to the public. "We are out there and we are watching." Although, it did not work out as they planned. Their demands alone showed an obvious political alliance which straight away blew apart the hackers' Robin Hood-like appearance, in one go.

There are many things we can learn from this most recent attack. One is that we really should take cyber privacy and internet security more seriously. Our websites are more or less vulnerable for future attacks and are in immediate need of strengthening. Furthermore, our general knowledge in these matters is almost non-existent; which should also change so that we are ready to face future attacks.

The most important message however, is this: Nothing happens is what it seems these days. What might seem like an act of social justice can very well hide a clear political agenda supported by corrupt political ideologies. Even more so, they might be funded by politicians or individuals with political influence. We as the citizens of this country, rest easy, blind and oblivious to these matters. Our awareness is our greatest strength.
It's about time we woke up.