International hackers attack CAT Telecom

The international hacking collective called Anonymous declared cyberwar on the Thai government Thursday, leaking documents on the single gateway plan and stealing data from CAT Telecom customer accounts.

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International hackers strike

Online reporters

The international hacking collective called Anonymous declared cyberwar on the Thai government Thursday over its policy to consolidate a single internet gateway.

The main target of the attack was CAT Telecom Pcl, the state-owned company which has been designated by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the cabinet to control the future gateway.

Early Friday, Twitter accounts apparently operated by Anonymous members showed parts of what it said were thousands of CAT customer accounts, including logins, passwords and personal IDs including Thai government ID names and numbers.

Data allegedly stolen from CAT customer accounts and posted via the Anonymous twitter account.

The CAT website was taken off the internet for several hours late Thursday. CAT's home page, cattelecom.com, was back online early Friday.

But the biggest event of the hack as described by Anonymous was the release of previously undisclosed details about the single gateway plan.

Reporter Don Sambandaraksa of the Telecomasia news site said Anonymous had emailed "a set of leaked documents" showing new details on the gateway project.

"TelecomAsia has received a set of leaked documents that would suggest the Single Gateway project has been a priority and pushed by the highest levels of the army for years", Mr Don wrote on Thursday.

It listed documents dated as early as 2006, allegedly showing that the military has been deeply involved in a project for an "offensive defence" division to control the internet in Thailand.

According to Mr Don, "One slide in particular listed target media that needed to be put under surveillance – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Wordpress, Blogger, Flickr, Instagram and Tumblr." Other "unfriendly" media included the Thai internet forum board Pantip.com. The only messaging service mentioned was Line, he said.

The group announced the campaign in a statement on its Twitter account, @anonymousasia.

"We saw the situation in Thailand for the past months going too far, restricting basic access to freedom of speech, protests and basic human rights against anyone who criticised the Thai Junta," the statement said.

Col Sanpachai Huvanandana, the new CAT Telecom CEO, said earlier this week that CAT was pushing ahead with a rebranded single gateway, claiming it would reduce costs for Thailand’s internet service providers.

The army also announced on Tuesday that it would establish a new cyber warfare unit to counter growing cyber threats.

Gen Sommai Kaotira, the supreme commander of the Royal Thai Armed Forces, had said that the new unit would comprise all three armed forces and the police. He added that the unit was part of a broader five-year roadmap.

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