Neighbours In War Of Words After Warning Of Hacktivist Attack On The Rise In Malaysia From Indonesia

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SOMETIMES it is difficult to be a bearer of bad news as social media influencer Irfan_newboys(@Marchfoward) found out.
His informative post on X that the Malaysian Cyber ​​Defence Force is on high alert to face a surge in cyber threats from Indonesian hacktivists on Malaysian government agencies, organisations and educational institutions received backlash as truth does hurt so to speak.
“This is in response to the recent incident of (one) Indonesian illegal immigrants being shot dead (while four others were injured) by the APMM (Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency) in self-defence,” penned Irfan_newboys.

“The alert was issued by the National Cyber ​​Command and Coordination Centre (NC4) which requested all relevant organisational system administrators to implement comprehensive cybersecurity measures at this time.
“Cyberattacks are expected to increase in the coming weeks. They are expected to launch four (types of) attacks, namely website defacements, credential leaks, unauthorised access and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).”

This somehow sparked an “IQ war” with one presumably Malaysian commenter re-posted statistics which ranked Malaysia 22nd in the list of “75 of the World’s Smartest Countries By Their Average IQ 2025” in which Indonesia was nowhere to be found in the list.

This is when some Indonesian commenters hit back by contending that Malaysia’s feat is made possible “because the Chinese are in command” and that “the Malays’ level of understanding is no better than Bangladeshis”.
One even compared how Indonesia produced 28 gold medallists at the International Physics Olympiad since 1999 with Malaysia having won only once in 2011

Another Indonesian commenter chided the poster against his “scare-mongering narrative” while stating that Indonesia would not have resorted to cyberattack if it wanted to invade Malaysia for his countrymen “could have done so with their bare hands to defend NKRI (Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia)”.
A fellow compatriot contended that not only that news of the potential cyberattacks by Indonesian hacktivists is unheard of in Jakarta, “Indonesia is currently grappling with numerous internal problems ranging from sea ​​fences to hard-to-find cooking gas, development of IKN (Nusantara Capital City which is to be the future capital city of Indonesia) and many more”.

While the war of words ensued, one Malaysian commenter shared that the hacktivist attack was already carried out within the first week of the shooting incident itself (the event occurred on Jan 24 in the waters off Tanjung Rhu Beach in Selangor).

Instead of fighting among “saudara serumpun” (people with brotherly ties), one commenter attempted to broker peace by suggesting that the hacktivists should set their sight “on hacking Israel” which is the common enemy. – Focus Malaysia

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