Myanmar's Internet 'attacked'

YANGON - A massive cyber attack has crippled Internet services in Myanmar ahead of Sunday's election, IT experts and web service providers say, raising fears of a communications blackout for the vote.

Internet users in the military-ruled country have reported slow connections and sporadic outages for more than a week, and some suspect the junta may be intentionally disrupting services to block news flowing out.

Web service providers have blamed the troubles on outside attacks.

'Our technicians have been trying to prevent cyber attacks from other countries,' a technician from Yatanarpon Teleport Co told AFP on condition of anonymity. 'We still do not know whether access will be good on the election day,' he added.

Experts say Myanmar's Internet system has been overwhelmed by a flood of incoming messages known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. US-based IT security firm Arbor Networks says the main state-owned Internet provider Myanmar Post and Telecommunications 'suffered a large, sustained DDoS attack disrupting most network traffic in and out of the country.' The onslaught was 'several hundred times' more than enough to overwhelm the country's terrestrial and satellite links, it estimated.--Full story at The Straits Times