Friday, March 25, 2011

Website of meteorologist Tun Lwin hacked

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Friday, 25 March 2011 19:14 Kyaw Kha

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – A Burmese hacker group that targets popular Burmese websites broke into the  Myanmar Climate Change Watch (MCCW) website created by noted meteorologist Dr. Tun Lwin.

Dr. Tun Lwin, a popular meteorologist, whose
website was hacked by a Burmese hackers'
group. Photo : www.tunlwin.com
The website provides free up-to-date information on climate changes and weather news in Burma.

The hackers, known as the Blink Hacker Group (BHG), posted a notice on the website that said users’ passwords were kept in plain text format, which undermines user privacy, the group said.

They hacked the website first on March 11 and then posted the warning on the website on Thursday.

The warning directed the website owner to repair the flaw in storing passwords as soon as possible or otherwise ‘BHG would hack and destroy this website’.

The last posted update on the website was at 6:30 a.m. on Friday with the news of the 6.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Shan State, Burma, at 8:25 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Managing Director Moe Hein of Pioneer Web Line Co. said technicians would repair the hacked website as soon as possible.

‘We are now working to protect the website from hackers who could post false information and mislead people’, Moe Hein told Mizzima.

He said the website was technically insecure and needed upgrading to block hackers.

‘The hackers are Burmese nationals’, he said. ‘These hackers usually hack the popular websites and Tun Lwin is a “netizen” celebrity. Their aim is to draw attention by hacking the famous  websites’.

MCCW regularly posts weather news and warnings on the website and many people closely monitor it for the latest weather news.

Tun Lwin is the former director general of the Meteorology and Hydrology Department. He retired in 2009.

BHG hackers have broken into other popular websites devoted to the entertainment industry and e-commerce.

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