‘Our nation’s flag is not a plaything’: Indonesian hackers deface 27 Malaysian websites in response to upside-down flag gaffe

Indonesian hackers deface dozens of Malaysian websites with the message “Our nation’s flag is not a plaything.”
Indonesian hackers deface dozens of Malaysian websites with the message “Our nation’s flag is not a plaything.”

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo called on the nation not to “exaggerate” the upside-down Indonesian flag blunder by Malaysian organizers at the 2017 SEA Games in order to preserve good relations between the two countries, but it appears his plea was disregarded by some.

Today, unidentified hackers from Indonesia hacked and defaced dozens of Malaysian websites in their protest of the upside-down flag controversy. As reported by Elshinta, as many as 27 websites were defaced to show a message like in the screenshot above.

The 27 websites now show photos of the upside-down Indonesian flag as appeared in the commemorative magazine of the regional sporting event, with a message underneath them that translates to, “Our nation’s flag is not a plaything.”

Under those are online handles of over a dozen hackers, believed to be Indonesian.

Of all the websites that were hacked, none of them appear to be hosted by the Malaysian government. The websites that were affected are an assortment of local businesses in Malaysia.

At the time of writing, the targeted websites are still defaced.

The upside-down flag controversy drew strong reactions from Indonesian netizens yesterday. The hashtag #ShameOnYouMalaysia topped Twitter’s trending topics shortly after the flag gaffe was made known to the public.



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