Members of the global hacking group Anonymous on Saturday claimed to have infiltrated the servers of one of Cambodia’s largest mobile operators and released a video threatening the government and pro-government organizations with more attacks.
The incidents follow the arrests of four alleged members of the Cambodian arm of Anonymous, at least two of which were apprehended with the help of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Early Saturday morning, members said in an online post that they hacked into the servers of mobile operator Cellcard and listed online thousands of phone numbers and PIN codes belonging to subscribers and Cellcard personnel.
The post also calls on members to attack websites with the suffixes .gov.kh, .mil.kh and .kh.
“Inviting the FBI in to your country to bust Anonymous is a bad idea. anyone reading this should be wondering why the FBI are even in Cambodia. Is this U.S. taxpayer dollars at work, chasing students engaging in online protest around the world?” the group writes in the post.
“To be honest, we are not very impressed, we think perhaps declaring open season on Cambodia’s servers will perhaps teach them a lesson about unintended consequences. When you dance with the Devil you can expect to get very badly burned,” it says.
Cellcard is owned by the Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group, whose chairman is Kith Meng, a tycoon with close ties to the government.
Cellcard CEO Ian Watson said Sunday that the data posted by Anonymous on Saturday appears to be the same data that was obtained during a 2011 hack.
“It appears this is the same information that was posted in 2011. Since then, the system was strengthened and upgraded,” he said.
Also Saturday, a Canadia Bank Plc. official denied Anonymous’s claim last week that it hacked the website of its subsidiary, Cana Securities Ltd., and released what appears to be usernames and passwords to the site.
“We can categorically state that no usernames and/or passwords of any Cana Securities customers were compromised whatsoever, nor was any personal information of any kind of any customer compromised,” said Tommy Boukhris, Canadia Bank project manager.
In early April, after an eight-month joint investigation between the National Police and the FBI, alleged Anonymous Cambodia members Bun Khing Mongkul Panha, 21, and Chou Songheng, 21, were arrested and charged for attacking 30 government websites and stealing data.
On Thursday, two more alleged members were arrested for hacking the Anti-Corruption Unit’s website. Their names have not been released.
