Hacker of Hundreds of School Sites to Campus for Judol Arrested by East Java Police

Police show evidence of uncovering the case of hacking school websites to online gambling/ANTARA/HO-KJU

SURABAYA - The East Java Regional Police's Cyber Investigation Directorate arrested a resident of Demak Regency, Central Java, with the initials AHKatas for allegedly hacking hundreds of school, college, and government agency websites to be sold to online/online gambling promotion networks.

"The suspect hacked or took control of the accounts belonging to schools and universities. There are dozens of schools and dozens of universities, especially in East Java, that have been hacked and taken over to be sold. When the website is clicked, a subdomain containing gambling promotions will appear," said Director of Cyber Investigation of the East Java Police, Police Commissioner General Bimo Ariyanto in Surabaya, Thursday, July 30, reported by ANTARA.

Bimo explained that the suspect targeted sites with a high number of visitors, especially schools and universities, so that online gambling promotions that were installed through the subdomain of the hacking results could reach more internet users.

He said the disclosure of the case began with a police cyber patrol in order to prevent the spread of online gambling content.

"From the patrol, investigators found a number of official websites of educational institutions that had changed their function to become media for promoting online gambling after being hacked by the perpetrators," he said.

According to Bimo, the suspect took advantage of security gaps on the pages of schools, universities, and government agencies.

After successfully entering the victim's electronic system, the suspect inserted certain files (archives) which caused the security system of the page to be damaged so that data traffic could be controlled.

"The suspect took advantage of the weaknesses of the websites of institutions, schools and universities. After the security system was damaged, the internet traffic data was controlled by the suspect, then sold through the SX Market platform so that the domain or subdomain was used for gambling promotion," he said.

From his actions, the suspect is suspected of obtaining profits of up to IDR 400 million per year.

During the investigation, the police seized evidence in the form of one mobile phone, a DANA digital wallet account, a Danamon Bank account, a Mandiri Bank account, a Facebook account, WhatsApp, and three Telegram accounts that were allegedly used to carry out the cybercrime.

Currently, the suspect is detained and charged with Article 32 paragraph (1) and/or Article 33 in conjunction with Article 48 and/or Article 49 of Law Number 1 of 2024 concerning the Second Amendment to the Information and Electronic Transaction Law.

"With a threat of imprisonment of up to 12 years," said Bimo.