Hackers shut down five Macao government websites on Wednesday evening, according to multiple media reports. A criminal investigation has been launched to trace the source of the cyberattack, according to the Office of the Secretary for Security (known by its Portuguese initials GSS) – whose site was one of the ones affected.
The other four sites were those belonging to the Public Security Police Force, the Fire Services Bureau, the Public Security Forces Affairs Bureau of Macau and the Academy of Public Security Forces. It took the SAR’s internet providers at least 45 minutes to restore partial access to the websites, though CTM users were reportedly unable to access them for more than three hours.
GGS has issued a statement saying that the shutdown was caused by a “distributed denial-of-service [DDoS] attacks from overseas”. It is not clear how many people were affected by the incident.
[See more: Cyberattacks in Macao are soaring but officials say most are being foiled]
Michael Gazeley, founder of Hong Kong cybersecurity firm Network Box, told the South China Morning Post that DDoS attacks are a cybercrime in which the attackers flood a server with internet traffic from a huge number of devices to prevent users from accessing online services and sites.
“Hackers would take control of thousands of devices and then use those devices to attack a target,” he explained. “And then if the authorities turn up, they’re looking at the devices’ IP [Internet Protocol addresses], not the hackers’ ones.”
Last November, figures from Macao’s Cybersecurity Incident Alert and Response Centre showed that the number of cyber attacks targeting Macao’s critical infrastructure had more than tripled since 2020 – though most were being foiled by the city’s cybersecurity systems.
