Suspects charged with alleged hacking of Singapore PM's office website

Two brothers were charged on Friday with the alleged hacking of website of Singapore prime minister's office. Mohammad Azhar Tahir, 27, and his brother Mohammad Asyiq Tahir, 21, were arrested in November. Mohammad Azhar faces 10 counts, including that of allegedly modifying contents of the sever of the prime minister's office website on Nov. 7. He is said to have impaired the server's search function and caused it to display an image of a mask and wordings. Mohammad Azhar also faces other charges, including unauthorized access to a computer, hacking into the online accounts of one individual and modifying the contents on Twitter and Instagram. Mohammad Asyiq faces six charges under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. Under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act, the highest penalty is a five-year jail term and a fine of 20,000 Singapore dollars (16,000 U.S. dollars). Several arrests have been made recently in relation to a recent spate of hacking incidents in Singapore. The attacks came after apparent members of international hackers collective Anonymous uploaded a video message in early November threatening to attack the Internet infrastructure of the Singapore government, urging it to reconsider a news portal licensing framework. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the Singapore authorities will "spare no effort" to track down culprits who launch cyber-attacks even though they think they can hide behind the Internet's veil of anonymity. Following the warning, the hackers attempted to bring down the websites of Istana and the prime minister's office on Nov. 8. In November, three Singaporeans were accused of compromising websites belonging to the Ang Mo Kio Town Council as well as the Istana, or presidential palace. James Raj Arokiasamy, 35. who allegedly goes by the moniker " the Messiah," was charged in mid-November with compromising the website of a local town council from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Singaporean also faces four drug charges and is currently in remand to help with investigations. The police also said on Thursday that they found information on 647 of Standard Chartered's private banking clients on a laptop belonging to him. Separately, businessman Delson Moo and student Melvin Teo were charged with hacking the webpage of the Istana on Nov. 8. The authorities have said the hacking of the prime minister's office website and the Istana website were not linked to James Raj.