Massive cyber attack targets West Papuan independence websites

You might have noticed we’ve been gone for a while! For the last 2 weeks, our website was down after being hacked. At last we are up and running again but several other West Papua related websites are still down. 

On 11^th April 2018, the pro-West Papuan independence websites for Benny Wenda (Chairman of the ULMWP), the  United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP), International Lawyers for West Papua (ILWP), and the Free West Papua Campaign (FWPC), were all hacked and shut down. Mike Atkins, who works with the sites effected said “the attack was a massive 31 GPBS (billions of bits per second) and came from tens of thousands of sources. This is a very large co-ordinated attack that could only be organised by a state entity. A coordinated attack using tens of thousands of sophisticated sources at once is not something that can be done on a small scale or by someone without significant financial means.”

Websites promoting West Papuan self-determination have regularly come under cyber attacks in the past, however the size of this attack, coordinating 1000’s of attacks simultaneously is unprecedented.

In 2011, Channel 4 Reported on websites which shared footage of the Indonesian military torturing West Papuans were all hacked by suspected networks connected to the Indonesian government.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IR7qqXOBWw

Similarly in 2014, there was further hacking of West Papuan websites in Australia as part of a wider intelligence operation against Free West Papua supporters. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-07/indonesian-students-accused-of-monitoring-west-papua-activists/5796870

For more information and interviews with webmaster Mike Atkins, and International Lawyers for West Papua co-founder Melinda Janki please contact the Free West Papua Campaign at office@freewestpapua.org.