The person who is responsible for hacking Singapore's Istana website was fined 8,000 Singapore dollars (6,364.4 U.S. dollars) on Thursday.

Delson Moo Hiang Kng, 43, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing the server hosting the Istana website on Nov. 8 last year. Two other similar charges were taken into consideration in the sentencing.

He admitted he carried out a cross-site scripting attack on the Google search function embedded in the Istana website. With the script embedded, he could cause the search function to display text and images that he had specified, which showed offensive phrases in Hokkien and images including one of an elderly woman giving the middle finger gesture.

The court also heard that Moo's act did not cause any damage to the contents of the Istana web server.

He could have been fined up to 10,000 Singapore dollars (7,955. 4 U.S. dollars), or jailed for up to three years, or both.

The case happened during a time that several cyber attacks targeting government websites and local media had aroused wide public concern. The websites of Prime Minister's Office and the Straits Times were hacked at that time.

These attacks came after apparent members of international hackers collective Anonymous uploaded a video message in early November last year threatening to attack the Internet infrastructure of the Singapore government, urging it to reconsider a news portal licensing framework. Endi

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)