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November 13, 2013

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Singapore charges PM website hacker

Singapore yesterday charged a 35-year-old man suspected of hacking a website linked to the prime minister and police said five other men were assisting in separate investigations into a recent series of high-profile hacker attacks.

Hacker attacks by people claiming links to international hacker collective Anonymous, including one on the official sites of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Tony Tan, have raised questions about the strength of cyber defenses in the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state.

A suspect called James Raj appeared in court and was charged with modifying the contents of a website belonging to the town council that manages the prime minister’s constituency on October 28.

If found guilty, he could be jailed for up to three years and fined 10,000 Singapore dollars (US$8,000). Raj allegedly hacked the web server from an apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, according to the charge sheet.

A state prosecutor told the court that investigations were still going on and asked that Raj be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for psychiatric evaluation. The prosecutor said Raj had told police he suffered from attention deficit disorder and suicidal tendencies.

Police declined to give details but suggested that Raj was not responsible for defacing the prime minister’s office and presidential palace websites on November 7-8.

Police said in a statement that those attacks were not related to earlier ones which they said were carried out by a 35-year-old Singaporean arrested on November 4. Police had worked closely with Malaysian counterparts to track down and arrest the suspect.

They said the man was believed to have operated alone and had been responsible for hacking the websites of the town council that manages the prime minister’s constituency, a blog of the pro-government Straits Times newspaper and a foundation run by the ruling People’s Action Party.

On the high-profile attacks on the websites of the prime minister’s office and presidential palace, police said five males aged 17 to 45 were helping them with their investigation.

 




 

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