Muslim hackers launch cyber war on Australia in response to ‘offensive’ dress at fashion festival

Muslim hacker groups launch cyber war on Australian websites after ‘offensive’ dress depicting the word Allah is paraded at Melbourne Fashion Festival.

The garment featuring the Arabic text for Allah. Picture: Lucas Dawson Photography

Religiously motivated hackers have launched a co-ordinated cyber attack on Australian businesses and government agencies to protest against a dress shown at the Melbourne Fashion Festival they say was offensive to Islam.

A group of self-identified Muslim hackers from Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh have been running direct denial of service (DDoS) attacks, jamming websites by overwhelming them with traffic. The vast majority of the sites claimed to have been taken down are small businesses that are not likely to be able to afford top-tier cyber security and obscure government agencies, small banks, regional ports and educational facilities.

Some websites appear to have been blocked; others were taken over and defaced.

The hackers are exaggerating their supposed successes, falsely claiming several sites had been taken offline that had in fact not been breached.

However, Australia’s largest container port, Port of Melbourne, in Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay, was targeted in a DDoS attack on Monday night that caused intermittent unavailability on its site for several hours.

The site was restored early on Tuesday and port authorities said there was no disruption to operations. “The website contains publicly available information, is hosted externally, and is not connected to Port of Melbourne’s operational or critical infra­structure,’’ a spokesman said.

“Our IT team is monitoring the situation and is communicating with relevant authorities and stakeholders.’’

The hackers also caused similar problems for the Port Authority of NSW, which runs Sydney Harbour, Port Botany, Newcastle Harbour and the ports of Kembla, Eden and Yamba, between 8pm and midnight on Monday.

A spokesperson for the authority said it had engaged an external agency to undertake a forensic review of the website, which was now operating normally.

“A preliminary analysis shows that no data was compromised. There is no indication that internal systems or information have been breached,’’ the spokesperson said, adding there was no operational impact to any shipping systems.

“Port Authority takes the security of its website seriously and as a result has initiated a post-event forensic assessment to ensure all systems remain secure.’’

The so-called #OpAustralia attacks are being monitored by nat­ional security agencies in Canberra, but seem to be causing little more than a nuisance so far.

“You have challenged us Muslim hackers, not only us but all Muslims around the world! Wait and see! Australia be ready,’’ one group posted, with an angry-faced emoji and a raised middle finger.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s office declined to ­comment.

The controversy started when a little-known fashion brand, Not a Man’s Dream, sent a model down the runway at the Melbourne Fashion Festival on March 11 in a flimsy dress with a headpiece similar to a hijab. The outfit was decorated with the word Allah, written in Arabic script.

Fashion blogger Mona Khalifa uploaded a social media video expressing concern about the dress, which she said showed disrespect, and the video went viral, generating headlines over what was described as disrespect to Islam.

The festival and the designer, Samantha Saint James, immediately apologised and scrubbed the images from their respective social media channels.

Days later, a group of Muslim hacktivists groups co-ordinated on encrypted platform Telegram a cyber hacking operation they called #OpAustralia – the same name given to a major cyber attack by the hacktivist group Anonymous in 2012, which targeted Australian government sites and disrupted ASIO’s public website. The main group to launch the attack, based out of Pakistan, claimed to have targeted education institutions, banks and government agencies, while data claimed to be from the Victorian Fire Risk Register, which monitors bushfire risk, was posed online by another group.

Another of the hacking groups claims to have breached a little-known dating site – but the site was hacked four years ago, and the data being touted may be old.

International cyber security firm Radware said the DDoS attacks had been aimed at more than 70 Australian websites. “There is no reason for panic but organisations need to be prepared. It is widely known … that disrupting or impacting an organisation or infrastructure requires more perseverance than skills,’’ it said.

“Muslim hacktivists have shown to be well connected and have a large circle of influence,’’ Radware said on its website

“Many of the involved hacktivist groups are running multiple concurrent operations. … the attacks were motivated by religion, a very common motivation for hacktivists.’’

Radware said denial of service has always been an important tactic for hacktivist groups.

“As the fallout in Australia has demonstrated, any organisation, independent of size and vertical, can become a target of hacktivists. A fashion label made an offensive statement, and governments, ports, banks, and several smaller businesses paid the bill,’’ the company said.