Both ruling, opposition leaders receive spam calls

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian political leaders from the ruling coalition and the opposition pact claimed they have been receiving spam calls during the polling process of 14th General Election (GE14) that is being held yesterday.

Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said and opposition leaders such as PKR vice-president Tian Chua and Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali said they have been getting missed calls from overseas numbers.

Hishammuddin, in his twitter account @HishammuddinH20, said he had just finished voting before realising he had received missed calls from unknown numbers.

Salleh, who is also Umno treasurer, said he also received a lot of spam calls this morning. The unknown calls were from local and overseas such as Indonesia.

Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said his phone seemed to be under some sort of spam attack yesterday morning.

“Strange,” Khairy posted in his twitter account, with a printed screen of calls from various locations such as United States and United Kingdom.

Azalina said she was also getting spam missed calls from unknown overseas numbers including from South Korea, and the United States since this morning.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan also posted a similar posting, saying that it was a dirty trick to prevent communications between the party’s various machinery.

“BN leaders’ handphones have been under technical attack since morning. Calls from overseas keep coming in every few seconds! To prevent us from communicating with our machinery. This is dirty trick!,” he said.

Meanwhile PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil said most of the Pakatan Harapan candidates’ phones and primary email addresses are being targeted in the new style of attack.

“So far affected include myself, @zairilkj, @elizabethwong, @AzminAli. I call on @ SKMM_MCMC to initiate immediate investigation,” he said.

Apart from political leaders, top government officials such as Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa and Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun were also targeted.

Ali said he received 488 spam calls since 7 am.

“This is a ‘cyber attack’ that has been planned by irresponsible parties to disrupt #GE14,” he said.

The public also flooded the social media with the same claim at the height of the ongoing polling process, which began at 8 am yesterday.

The election, to determine a government that will administer the country over the next five years, will send elected representatives to 222 parliamentary seats and 505 state seats. - Bernama