Its chief executive officer, Amirudin Abdul Wahab, said the incidents were “real” and the agency, which comes under the science, technology and innovation ministry, was investigating and monitoring them.
It is also working closely with other bodies to mitigate the attacks.
At least 33 Malaysian websites were hacked today up till 3.40pm, he told FMT.
Organisations are recommended to apply in-depth cyber-defence programmes to protect their networks, he added.
He said systems, applications and third-party add-ons need to be updated with the latest upgrades and security patches.
“If you’re running on older versions of operating systems or software, ensure they are upgraded to the latest versions. Older versions may have some vulnerability that can be manipulated by intruders,” he said.
Amirudin also urged website system administrators to harden the configuration of their networks, operating systems and application components that may be targeted with distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks.
A DDOS hit occurs when the bandwidth of a targeted system is flooded with traffic — typically from hijacked or infected machines — to overwhelm the system’s capacity and render its services inaccessible.
“Organisations are recommended to regularly conduct vulnerability assessment and penetration testing on their systems,” he said.
Earlier today, the unidentified hackers had hit dozens of Malaysian websites in protest against an error in a Kuala Lumpur SEA Games 2017 souvenir programme for the opening ceremony on Saturday that displayed the republic’s flag upside-down.
According to Indonesian news portal Suara.com, the affected sites were mostly private and business blogs.
After they were struck, visitors who clicked on the sites found themselves re-routed to another website www.beahappymillionaire.com which shows the message “My national flag is not a toy”.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin directed that further distribution of the souvenir booklet be stopped and ordered fresh copies to be printed with the correction done.
The Malaysia SEA Games Organising Committee (Masoc), in a statement, apologised to all Indonesians over the unintentional mistake.
Khairy also tendered an apology to his counterpart when he made a special call on Indonesian Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi yesterday.
Wisma Putra also sent an official apology to the Indonesian government over the incident.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo, commenting on the issue, said although the flag blunder was regrettable, the issue should not be blown out of proportion.
However, this did not stop 50 NGO members from staging a protest in front of the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta this afternoon.
Indonesian hackers attack Malaysian websites after flag gaffe