Malaysia

THERE’S that old saying, about no matter how tight your mosquito net is, one always gets through the mesh.
 
It is stuff like this that keeps information security professionals up at night: No matter how secure a system is, a skilful enough hacker with the time and resources on hand, will generally be able to break through. The point, some would say, is to make it not worth his or her while, so that the hacker would go on and pick on less troublesome targets.
 

This morning in Malaysia notorious security conference Hack In The Box readies to open its doors and offer a juicy talk schedule to attending hackers, security researchers, corporate spies, law enforcement, and more. 

They're letting a few journalists in, too. ZDNet is here Kuala Lumpur to bring you highlights as they happen. Hack In The Box is at the Intercontinental Hotel Kuala Lumpur, starting today October 16th from 9am to 6pm and tomorrow, October 17th also from 9-6.

Next week in Malaysia security conference Hack in The Box Kuala Lumpur is set to make headlines in its 11th year with talks on hacking airline systems, getting iCloud data access, and the Microsoft bounty winner.

Hack in The Box has a reputation for featuring explosive talks from security researchers whose findings often sound like the basis for dramatic movie plots.

Search queries involving Malaysian domain names were poisoned this morning, leading visitors to temporary sites with a message from what appears to be a hacker protesting against the treatment of Bangladeshi workers in the country.
 
Affected sites included Dell Malaysia (.com.my), all Microsoft sites on the .my suffix -- notably MSN Malaysia (.com.my), Skype Malaysia (.com.my) and Bing Malaysia (.com.my) -- as well as antivirus site Kaspersky (.com.my). Google Malaysia (.com.my), YouTube Malaysia (.com.my) and a few other .my domain sites.
 

THE slumbering merlion is stirring: The Singapore Government’s move last week to regulate online news, including the local edition of Yahoo News, has resulted in public protests while Malaysians are watching developments closely after one of their own ministers said the Malaysian Government might follow suit.
 
Last Tuesday, Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) announced that from June 1 onwards, “online news sites that report regularly on issues relating to Singapore and have significant reach among readers here will require an individual licence.”
 

L33tdawg: Online registration is open and early bird rate ends on the 25th of July. 

The Evad3rs will be teaching two technical training courses on iOS Exploitation at HITB2013KUL for those interested.

The Hack in the Box Security Conference takes place from the 14th till the 17th of October 2013 at the InterContinental Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Two men aged 33 and 28 were arrested at a hotel in Jalan Raja Laut in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday for allegedly hacking two government department websites, namely the National Registration Department (NRD) and the Information Department.

The police seized four laptops, three mobile phones, external hard disks and external drives from the duo, a 33-year-old entrepreneur and a computer expert, who are remanded until tomorrow to facilitate investigations, said Bukit Aman Commercial CID director Syed Ismail Syed Azizan.

Filipino hackers defaced the Philippines’ government telecommunications website yesterday, accusing Philippine President Benigno Aquino III of being “pro-Malaysian” amid the Sabah armed conflict with Sulu militants, Philippine broadcaster ABS-CBN News reported.

Anonymous Philippines previously hacked the Philippine president’s official website last Tuesday, with the hacker group lambasting Aquino for doing nothing to stop the alleged human rights violations against Filipinos in Sabah.

The website of the Office of the President was hacked by Anonymous Philippines Thursday morning because President Benigno Aquino III was allegedly "mishandling the Sabah issue."

"Greetings, President Aquino! We have watched how you signed into law a bill that endangers and tramples upon the netizens' freedom of speech and expression. Now, we are silent witnesses as to how you are mishandling the Sabah issue," the hacker group said in its message that took over the website.

Officers from the cyber crime unit of the Royal Malaysian Police arrested a 27-year-old man on Wednesday for hosting links to illegal downloads on the popular local message board and file-sharing site, SYOK.org.

According to the police, the suspect, who is from the city of Kulim, is believed to be the operator of SYOK.org, which counts registered users in the hundreds of thousands (according to the website’s own Facebook page). In order to participate on the forum, users must register a username and password.