News > Communications

By Sreejit Pillai, Malaysia.CNET.com, CNET.com
Wednesday, January 17, 2001 07:57 PM

KUALA LUMPUR--Malaysian police have tracked the people involved in the hacking of the Parliament Web site to Brazil and France and have requested the police in the respective countries to arrest them.

The Sun newspaper, citing a police source, reported that the hackers' Internet Protocol (IP) address has been traced.

In the event local police do not succeed in getting the aid of the Brazilian and French police, the report said investigations will continue with the help of Interpol.

The Parliament Web site was hacked in late December by someone--or a group--going by the name of "Topeira" who defaced the site and placed grafitti on the homepage.

The police is investigating the hacking incident under Section Five of the Computer Crimes Act 1997. Offenders can be jailed a maximum of seven years or fined RM100,000 (S$45,586) or both, upon conviction.

Azman Musa, director of the Information, Communication and Technology security unit of the Malaysian Administration Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu) meanwhile said that the first page of the Parliament homepage was up since Monday.

He said the site's security features has been improved to deter "casual" hackers, even though "we cannot totally prevent hack attacks."

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