“I need help” email virus attacks Burmese exile groups

October 4, 2008

HURFOM : Members of Burmese exile groups are facing another round of cyber attacks. An email with the subject line “I need help” is infecting the computers of users who open the message, report sources in Mae Sot, Thailand.

“On October 2nd, after I finished my work, I logged into my email and clicked on an email titled ‘I need help.’ After that my computer froze, including the screen, cursor and keyboard. After waiting a few minutes, nothing changed so I shut the computer down. When I restarted, I could only get a black screen,” says Maung Shwe, 40, a Burmese pro-democracy activist in Mae Sot.

A computer expert assisting exile groups with technology needs told HURFOM that he has received at least three calls from people whose computers are infected by the virus. He said that the email installs a Trojan, and that it can be fixed by removing host files acting to spread the infection. “Email attacks are becoming more and more of a threat,” he said, adding, “The exile community needs to increase their technological security measures.”

The “I need help” emails mirror the so-called “Happy Birthday” virus, which infected hundreds computers in March 2008. Though the sources of viruses are unknown, they come at a time when Burmese exile and dissident groups are under increasing cyber attack. On October 2nd, Mizzima News, based in New Delhi, was briefly shut down. Instead of its usual content, the news site displayed a crude message from a group calling themselves “Independence Hackers from Burma.”

In September, the news sites of exile news groups The Irrawaddy, Democratic Voice of Burma and New Era Journal were disabled by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which overloaded the website’s servers. Mizzima and the Democratic Voice of Burma were also disrupted by DDoS attacks in July.
In August, popular Burmese community forums Mystery Zillion and Planet Myanmar were shut down by similar DDoS attacks. The sites, though explicitly non-political, provide information on circumventing filters and other restrictions placed on internet access inside Burma.

Many of the attacks came on the anniversary of last year’s Saffron Protests, in which country-wide peaceful protests received global attention after bloggers and exile media were able to circumvent regime restrictions and publicize the events.
The attacks have been widely attributed to the Burmese military regime, whose Military Affairs Security officers have been receiving extensive computer training and supplies from Singapore, reported the Asia Times on October 1st.

The electronic warfare being waged on exile groups has been relatively simple, Professor Desmond Bell, a communications security expert at Australian National University, told the Asia Times. The real risk, Bell says, is if the regime is able to infiltrate a computer or network and access information or disrupt systems without avoiding detection. It is not clear whether the regime has these capabilities, but that is, after all, the point. If the regime has the capabilities, in other words, exile groups could be victims and not know it.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News