ALEX PARK WRITES – Google plays such an important part in today’s global society and it is our most used search engine. Countless numbers of people have Google accounts, which they use for things like email, social media and other websites and programs. It is terrifying to think that someone would hack such a personal website, possibly granting access to billions of users’ private information. The population of Malaysia faced such a problem.
On Tuesday night, people found that they were unable to access Google’s Malaysia homepage and instead were redirected to a hacked page that said “Google Malaysia Hacked By TiGER-M@TE #Bangladeshi HackeR.”
Malaysian citizens have worried about the safety of their personal information under these circumstances. However, Google assured people that their personal information was safe and sound. According to Google, the issue wasn’t a breach of security, but a disturbance in a domain name system server.
A domain name system, or DNS for short, is a technology that takes the information in URLs and redirects the browser to the corresponding webpage. Basically, the DNS is the middle man between URLs and webpages. Besides the DNS being breached, the only thing affected by the hacking was Google’s homepage. Thankfully, nothing else had affected the search engine.
This isn’t the first time that a hacker has breached the domain name server of a website or has even claimed credit for it, for that matter. A hacker self-identified as Lizard Squad successfully targeted Malaysia Airlines in January. Another similar case occurred where Google Vietnam’s DNS server was hacked in February.
These multiple hackings have caught the attention of Google and issues with Google’s Malaysia website are expected to be resolved very soon. However, this particular case addresses the issue of security and freedom on the internet in Malaysia and whether or not the Malaysian government should restrict the media even further in light of the hackings.