According to Mizzima's webmaster, the attackers took advantage of the sites' code weakness. Even as files from the English and Burmese websites were deleted from the database, and had to be recovered from the back-up,mizzima main site, and it's tv and photo site were temporarily down.

As of 1 October, the problems with the mizzima.com, mizzima.tv and mizimaphoto.com websites were rectified. But the Burmese language  site of Mizzima remained inaccessible.

Although it is not known who is behind the attack, the hacker's internet protocol (IP) is found to have originated from a server in the United States.

Mizzima, however, is still unable to confirm whether the attack is the work of the Burmese military junta, which has banned Mizzima's websites inside the country. Web users bypassing the government's Internet filtering systems with the help of proxy and browsing can access Mizzima's sites. If they are caught, however, they would have to pay a heavy penalty.

"It is hard to tell who is behind the attack but someone who has a special interest could be the culprit or culprits," said Sein Win, managing editor of Mizzima News.

"However, these people should know that this is a criminal offence," he added.

This is not the first time that the websites of Mizzima, as well as other Burmese media groups in exile, including the Chiang Mai-based "Irrawaddy", Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and Bangkok- based "New Era Journal", have been attacked.

In July, the Burmese websites of Mizzima News and the DVB came under a Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attack, causing the sites to become inaccessible for several days.

Similarly, on 24 September, a day before the first anniversary of the 2007 monk-led protests in Burma, three Burmese news agencies in exile, "The Irrawaddy", DVB and "New Era Journal", came under a DDoS attack.

BACKGROUND:

Mizzima News Agency, run by Burmese journalists, is an independent Burmese multi-media group focusing on Burma and related news and issues, and has four different websites - Mizzima.com, Mizzimaburmese.com, Mizzima.tv and mizzimaphoto.com.

Besides offering updated daily news both in English and Burmese, Mizzima also podcasts video stories on its mizzima.tv site, which are frequently picked up by other news organizations.

Both Mizzima's Burmese and English sites normally attract an average of 10,000 to 15,000 unique visitors per day but the readership suddenly jumped to hundreds of thousands during the September 2007 protests in Burma and in May and June 2008, following the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis.

For further information on the recent attack on news agencies' websites, see: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/97090/

For further information on the July attack on the Mizzima and DVD websites, see: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/95809/

MORE INFORMATION:

For further information, contact Soe Myint, Editor-in-Chief,
Mizzima News, DG-III/45, Vikaspuri, New Delhi-110018, India,
tel/fax: 11 2853 5548, e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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