2010 cyberattacks on Myanmar

Distributed denial-of-service attacks preceding 2010 Burmese general election November 2015 July 2026 The 2010 cyberattacks on Myanmar (also known as Burma) were distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) that began on 25 October, http://www.mmtimes.com/2010/news/547/news54716.html Internet out hits tourism sector Myanmar Times 1 November 2010 4 November 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20101105211505/http://www.mmtimes.com/2010/news/547/news54716.html 5 November 2010 dead dmy-all occurring ahead of the 2010 Burmese general election, which is widely viewed as a sham election. Clegg Nick https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/04iht-edclegg.html Myanmar's Sham Election The New York Times 3 October 2010 4 November 2010 http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1089673/1/.html https://archive.today/20101030024856/http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1089673/1/.html dead 30 October 2010 Protesters in Japan decry Myanmar 'sham election' plan Channel News Asia 27 October 2010 4 November 2010 This election was the first that Burma had had in 20 years.Sutherland J.J. Myanmar's Internet Under Cyberattack https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/11/04/131070830/myanmar-s-internet-under-cyberattack 30 October 2014 NPR 4 November 2010 The attacks were significantly larger than attacks against Estonia and Georgia in 2007 and 2008 respectively. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11693214 Burma hit by massive net attack ahead of election BBC News 4 November 2010 4 November 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20101105044618/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11693214 5 November 2010 live The attack followed a similar one on 1 February 2010, Feng Yingqiu http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90781/90877/7187339.html Myanmar Internet link continues to meet with interruption People's Daily 3 November 2010 8 November 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20101106072442/http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90781/90877/7187339.html 6 November 2010 live and also followed an incident of a total loss of connection to the internet the previous spring when a submarine communications cable was severed accidentally.Seltzer Larry https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372123,00.asp DDoS Attack on Myanmar Takes the Country Offline PC Magazine 11 April 2010 8 November 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20101107032824/http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2C2817%2C2372123%2C00.asp 7 November 2010 live Attacks beginning 25 October 2010 Over the period of a week, a large-scale massive DDoS attack targeted Burma's main Internet provider, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication. Successful attacks to this network interfered with the majority of all incoming and outgoing network traffic. The motivation for the attacks, and hence the culprits, were unclear, but there was significant speculation that blamed the Burmese government for a pre-emptive attack to disrupt Internet access just before the general elections. The ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), was known for denying universal human rights such as freedom expression; the government's efforts to silence dissent are extended to cyberspace, and it has one of the most restrictive systems of Internet control in Asia.Sample Charmaine Nart Villeneuve Masashi Crete-Nishihata Control and Resistance: Attacks on Burmese Opposition Media Culture and Computer Network Attack Behaviors April 2013 153–176 http://access.opennet.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/accesscontested-chapter-08.pdf 1 November 2014 8 The fact that international observers and foreign journalists were not being allowed into the country to cover the polls raised suspicions that Burma's military authorities could have been trying to restrict the flow of information over the election period. Technical details A DDoS attack attempts to flood an information gateway with data exceeding its bandwidth. The "distributed" element of a Distributed Denial of Service means that it involves PCs spread all over the world. These enslaved computers, called "botnets," are usually home computers that have been hijacked and compromised by a virus. Botnets are usually rented out by cyber criminals for various purposes, which includes web attacks. They can be controlled from across the internet. The size of the October–November 2010 attacks increased daily from 0.5 to 10–15 Gbit/s, each daily attack lasting over eight hours (always during regular office hours), from computers across the globe. This was several hundred times more than enough to overwhelm the country's 45 Mbit/s T3 terrestrial and satellite links. http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2010/11/attac-severs-myanmar-internet/ Attack Severs Burma Internet Labovitz Craig Arbor Networks 3 November 2010 4 November 2010 Attacks on blogging websites in September were also on the order of Gbit/s. http://www.dvb.no/news/scale-of-cyber-attacks-%E2%80%98rare-and-serious%E2%80%99/11986 Scale of cyber attacks 'rare and serious' Wade Francis Democratic Voice of Burma 29 September 2010 13 February 2013 https://web.archive.org/web/20130131161021/http://www.dvb.no/news/scale-of-cyber-attacks-%e2%80%98rare-and-serious%e2%80%99/11986 31 January 2013 dead By comparison, the 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia were at most 90 Mbit/s, lasting between a minute to over 10 hours. http://ddos.arbornetworks.com/2007/05/estonian-ddos-attacks-a-summary-to-date/ Estonian DDoS Attacks - A summary to date Nazario Jose Arbor Networks 29 September 2010 13 February 2013 https://web.archive.org/web/20130515060744/http://ddos.arbornetworks.com/2007/05/estonian-ddos-attacks-a-summary-to-date/ 15 May 2013 dead dmy-all Cyberattacks in Burma prior to the 2010 election This cyber attack notably followed a similar one on 1 February 2010, when the internet link service of Myanmar's Yatanarpon Teleport Company was struck, and also followed the incident of a total loss of connection to the internet the previous spring when a submarine communications cable was severed accidentally. Despite the heavy hand that the regime wields over cyberspace, information communication technologies (ICTs) have provided Burmese opposition groups the means to challenge the government by broadcasting their message to the world. There has been an ongoing battle between the liberation technologies and the authoritarian government. In 2000, Burmese political activists received numerous e-mails that contained viruses, which many believe were part of an organised campaign perpetrated by state agents. The first major example of a DDoS attack in Burma was in 2007, during the Saffron Revolution when Burmese activists managed to put videos and pictures of the demonstrations and government crackdown on the internet, at which time the government severed the internet connection for almost two weeks. Near the one-year anniversary of the Saffron Revolution, the websites of three main Burmese independent media organisations were attacked and effectively silenced. The Democratic Voice of Burma and The Irrawaddy were made inaccessible through a DDoS attack, and the website for Mizzima News was defaced. Through 2009 and 2010, attacks on Burmese opposition media sites continued periodically. The timing of these attacks and the nature of the websites being attacked indicate a political connection. Although the identity of the attackers remain unknown, it is widely believed that the government played a role. This belief is still held, because the Burmese government has consistently made efforts to control and censor the communications environment of the country. Also, the timing and co-ordination of these attacks being around the anniversary of the Saffron Revolution suggests that the motivation of them was to prevent the websites from commemorating the protests and possibly mobilising new political actions. In September 2010, coinciding with the third anniversary of the Saffron Revolution, Nizza Mike http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/burmese-government-clamps-down-on-internet Burmese Government Clamps Down on Internet The New York Times 28 September 2007 13 February 2013 the websites belonging to independent and opposition news sites and blogs were brought down by DDoS attacks similar to, but less powerful than, the ones that took place prior to the election. On 27 September 2010, DDoS was used specifically against two news websites in Burma: the Democratic Voice of Burma and The Irrawaddy Magazine. Both of these magazines were providers of independent coverage of current affairs in Burma. These attacks were believed to originate from the Burmese government, and with the election a month away, media workers feared that this attack was a test run leading up to the election. In 2009, Burma ranked 171 out of 175 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index.Stop Cyber Attacks Against Independent Burmese Media http://en.rsf.org/burma-nouvel-article-05-10-2010,38494.html https://web.archive.org/web/20101009034830/http://en.rsf.org/burma-nouvel-article-05-10-2010,38494.html dead 9 October 2010 28 October 2014 Reporters Without Borders 5 October 2010 See also Internet in Burma References Category:2010 in Myanmar Burma