Dear Malaysiakini subscribers,

As you know, Malaysiakini was hit by a sweeping denial-of-service (DOS) attack beginning last Tuesday, April 12. The attack stopped on Sunday, April 17 - a day after the Sarawak election.

Malaysiakini swiftly responded to the attacks by setting up new servers in both Malaysia and the US. However, these servers also came under attack. Given that these attacks were from overseas, Malaysiakini eventually resorted to blocking all international traffic so that the site remained available within Malaysia, in particular Sarawakians.

For readers overseas, Malaysiakini launched a mirror site on Wordpress. As our subscription and email server was also attacked, we could only inform readers via Facebook and Twitter .

We sincerely apologise for the loss of subscription days, and we will be adding two weeks to your subscription to compensate for the days lost. You can read more about the attacks here and here .

Many readers have asked why Malaysiakini was not more prepared for the DOS attack.

Although Malaysiakini has made preparations, the attacks against the two data centres where our local servers are located, as well as a simultaneous attack against our servers in the US and the CDN (Content Delivery Network) were unprecedented.

We are learning from the tactics used in the attacks so that we are better prepared next time. And we are looking at all available options.

However, the challenges are serious and solutions costly, especially for a website which has one of the highest traffic in the country. Malaysiakini currently handles about one terabyte of data per day, and serves 35 million pageviews and 2.3 million unique readers per month - up from 1.6 million just 12 months ago.

To help Malaysiakini invest in new technology, donations are appreciated. More information on this is available here .

Alternatively, subscribers can contribute by upgrading to a three-year subscription at RM388. To upgrade your subscription, contact subscribe@malaysiakini.com

Once again, we apologise for any weakness on our part. Should you have any queries or suggestions, do not hesitate to contact me at prem@malaysiakini.com

Sincerely,

Premesh Chandran

Chief executive officer

Malaysiakini