[ISN] Myanmar on the cyber-offensive

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 04:05:55 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JJ01Ae01.html

By Brian McCartan 
Asia Times Online
Oct 1, 2008

MAE SOT, Thailand - The distributed denial of service attacks, or DDoS, 
that hit and disabled several exile media websites between September 17 
to 19, are widely held to be the latest attempt by Myanmar's military 
regime to silence its legion of critics.

The cyber-attacks, which flood a website with information requests which 
block regular traffic and eventually overload and crash it, coincided 
with the run-up to last year's "Saffron" revolution, in which soldiers 
opened fire and killed Buddhist monks and anti-government demonstrators. 
But the junta's cyber-warfare specialists appear to have wider designs 
than just censoring an uncomfortable anniversary and they are receiving 
plenty of foreign assistance in upgrading their political 
dissent-quashing capabilities.

The Defense Services Computer Directorate (DSCD) was set up by the War 
Office in around 1990, originally with the aim of modernizing the 
military's communications and administration systems. By the mid-1990s, 
however, the center had become much more focused on Information Warfare 
operations, according to a signals intelligence expert who spoke with 
Asia Times Online.

The center became responsible for monitoring telephone calls, faxes, 
e-mails and other forms of electronic data exchange. Another computer 
center was later set up at the Directorate of Defense Services 
Intelligence (DDSI), Myanmar's main military intelligence service. The 
DSCD is aimed more at military communications, while the intelligence 
service's computer center is more politically focused, including 
monitoring opposition groups both within and outside Myanmar.

[...]


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Received on Wed Oct 01 2008 - 02:05:55 PDT

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