Hacktivist collective Anonymous yesterday claimed to have hacked the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management and a Beijing-based private satellite operator in retaliation for a Wikipedia edit war the hackers said was part of a Chinese influence operation.
The cyberattacks on Saturday compromised the menu page of the content management system for the ministry’s Web site, enabling the hackers to vandalize 19 pages and deface seven forums with images, the Taiwan News Web site yesterday quoted Anonymous representative “Allez-opi_omi” as saying.
The group also claimed to have hacked three pages of MinoSpace Technology’s Web site.
Photo courtesy of Anonymous
The Web sites were altered to display images of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the Republic of China (ROC) flag and satirical Winnie the Pooh cartoons, along with slogans such as “Down with Xi Jinping” (習近平) and “Restore the ROC,” archived versions of the sites on the Wayback Machine showed.
The hacks were in response to a Wikipedia edit war that started in September over an entry related to Anonymous member “Cyber Anakin,” who has allegedly hacked Chinese government Web sites and management system interfaces, Allez-opi_omi was cited as saying.
The edits were part of a larger Chinese information operation to change content on Wikipedia by exploiting the system, they said, citing an edit on China’s Oct. 1 National Day that changed Taiwan’s status from a country to a “partially recognized country.”
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