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January 31, 2015

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Hacker ‘Messiah’ given 5 years in prison

A SINGAPOREAN man who called himself “The Messiah” was sentenced to nearly five years in jail yesterday for hacking into several servers, including the website of a district represented by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

District court judge Jennifer Marie said the stiff sentence she imposed on James Raj, 36, was meant to act as a deterrent to would-be hackers, and warned that cyber attacks posed “considerable danger to the economy and the country.”

The ruling came as Singapore this week sought to strengthen its defenses against hackers, announcing it will set up a new agency to improve cyber security amid high profile hacking incidents worldwide.

Raj pleaded guilty to 39 cyber-related charges, including the October 2013 hacking of the Ang Mo Kio district website, whose MPs include Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and posting the image of a Guy Fawkes mask used by hacker collective Anonymous.

According to the charge sheet, Raj identified himself as “The Messiah” and carried out the hack from an apartment in Kuala Lumpur in neighboring Malaysia.

He fled to Malaysia after skipping police bail in 2011 for drug offenses, before being extradited back to Singapore in November 2013.

Raj had used the “The Messiah” moniker before to hack a reporter’s blog on the website of the pro-government newspaper the Straits Times.

He also secured unauthorized access to other web servers, and posted a video that demanded the scrapping of a law in Singapore requiring news websites to obtain annual licenses.

“Cyber intrusions and threats pose considerable danger to the economy and the country,” the judge said, adding that state prosecutors had described the offenses committed by Raj as “the largest, most prolific cyber attacks against IT systems in Singapore.”




 

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