The ugly nature of hacktivism

UP till last year, Nov 5 held little significance for corporations in Singapore, but a spate of hacking incidents changed that. Almost overnight, CEOs were forced into acquaintance with the hacking collective called Anonymous, the Guy Fawkes celebration that it associated itself with and the cyber-havoc that it promised to wreak on that date.

This year, businesses and government agencies must again contemplate the month of November with a shudder, especially with the exposure of more than 300,000 K Box customers' personal data this week by hackers. Now, the karaoke bar chain faces an investigation by the personal data watchdog…