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Civil War, now in the cyber version
The Myanmar army learned lessons from the Arab Spring a decade ago, and with the coup in the country it blocked social networks.
Citizens did not remain indebted and launched aggressive cyber attacks.
It can be assumed that this war has only just begun
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Myanmar
Cyber
Yotam Gutman
Friday, 26 February 2021, 08:29
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Cyber in Myanmar - Target List (Photo: PR)
The army seized power in Myanmar (formerly Burma) on February 1 this year.
Citizens responded with huge protests and rallies in the streets, and of course, turned to social media to spread the news and protest around the world.
In the days following the coup, however, Myanmar residents experienced numerous internet access disruptions, with up to 50% of the country being virtually cut off from the outside world.
After a few days, accessibility improved, but the main website through which residents communicate with each other and with the outside world - Facebook (which in many countries around the world serves as the gateway to the Internet through mobile devices and the "Facebook Lite" app) was completely blocked.
It should be noted that Facebook was outraged at the blockade and itself blocked accounts of local military personnel in response.
With Facebook, access to the other networks it owns was also blocked - WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
It turns out that the authorities (through local communications providers) have activated blockades on various districts and against apps and services through which citizens will communicate.
Sometimes all access to the Internet was blocked and sometimes it was restricted to the use of a very narrow strip in a technique called "throttling" - which of course leads to loads and slowness and makes it very difficult to surf.
The partition of geographical blockages of the Internet was carried out already in Minamar - for example, in 2019 when the authorities there conducted military operations against the Muslim minority in Rahin province.
After blocking Facebook, many users switched to communicating on Twitter, which was also blocked for several days.
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Ministry of Health website hacked in Myanmar (Photo: Yachz)
On the tenth of the month, the ruling junta submitted a draconian bill that gives it the authority to monitor and block unwanted content and various sites through the country's Internet and cellular providers.
The residents of the country are not waiting for the approval of the law and have started using VPN services that make it possible to follow these restrictions.
Some VPN service providers have reported a 7000% increase in service usage.
Other responses to blockades and coups were more aggressive.
A group called Myanmar Hackers attacked a series of sites in the country on the 18th of the month - the Central Bank, military propaganda sites, the Public Broadcasting Authority, the Ports Authority and the Food and Drug Administration, in denial of service attacks and vandalism.
The local attackers were joined by the anonymous movement that launched the #OpMyanmar campaign, in which they uploaded videos to YouTube and called on their supporters to support the oppressed Myanmar residents.
They have launched a list of targets for the attack that includes government sites, banks, airlines and more.
Because popular opposition to the coup continues, it is to be expected that these actions will only escalate and may even "leak" to neighboring countries, such as Malaysia, with which Myanmar has a conflict over the latter's oppression of the Muslim minority, some even say ethnic cleansing, living in one of the country's northern provinces.
Summary
Yotam Gutman (Photo: Yachz)
The coup in Myanmar takes place about a decade after the "Arab Spring", which began as a protest on social media and toppled rulers and regimes in the Middle East and the Maghreb countries.
Burma's military leaders seem to have learned the lessons of the past and are unwilling to give opposition forces a free hand in using these platforms - so they will try to block or at least restrict access to those networks, most of whose residents could not access the Internet in other ways and were almost completely cut off from the outside world. Two decades ago.
Yotam Gutman is the marketing director of the cyber company SentinelOne
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