Two brothers charged separately for hacking PMO website, local star’s accounts
Two brothers on Friday were charged in Singapore's courts for separate cyber crimes, one involving the defacement of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) website and the other for hacking into a local actor's email and social media accounts.
Mohammad Azhar Bin Tahir, 27, was slapped with 10 charges under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act — the first for running a script on the PMO site's search function on 7 November at about 4pm.
He was also accused of two counts of hacking into and changing the password of a wireless Internet network belonging to one Nadia Binte Ali Khan on 5 and 7 November, also changing its password sometime that month, according to court documents.
In relation to "Ah Boys To Men" star Ridhwan Azman's email and social media accounts, Mohammad Azhar was allegedly responsible for changing passwords on the former's Facebook fan page, as well as his Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, YouTube and Instagram accounts on 5 and 7 November.
His younger brother, Mohammad Asyiq Bin Tahir, was read six charges. One was for unauthorised access of Nadia's wireless network on 5 November, and others were for crimes relating to the compromise of Ridhwan's YouTube account (uploading the "response" video purportedly from the "Anonymous" group of hackers), Hotmail, Gmail and Blogspot accounts.
The 21-year-old also faces one charge of gaining unauthorised access to Ridhwan's ex-girlfriend Woo Huijing, better known by her online moniker "Luna Baby"'s Facebook account on 4 November.
According to public posts on Ridhwan's personal Facebook account, Mohammad Asyiq is Woo's ex-boyfriend.
"After much defame [sic] from them and especially from the girl sincerely felt for [sic], I can't be that nice... See you in court," he wrote.
Both are out on bail, and will have their cases next mentioned in court on 6 January.
Police investigation into the two brothers' alleged cyber crimes is the latest in a string of arrests of Singaporeans believed to be responsible for a string of local site hacking incidents.
Mid-last month, James Raj, who is believed to have branded himself as "The Messiah", was arrested and charged for a series of website defacements, alongside issuing threats of waging cyber war on Singapore's government.
Businessman Delson Moo, 42, and teenage student Melvin Teo, 17, were also charged last week for compromising the Istana website, in what is understood to be an incident unrelated to Raj's string of alleged crimes.
