Rumours are abound that malaysiakini will be the focus of online attacks over the next three days.

Sources within the community of hackers claim there have been requests for their services to be used to bring down the news website leading up to polling day.

"We have been tracking various computer (IP) addresses attempting to infiltrate our system. We will block any computer using trying to gain unauthorised access to our servers," said Danny Hong, the online daily's system manager.

On March 5, the day after Parliament was dissolved, malaysiakini was the target of a 'denial of service' attack, which brought down the website's servers for two hours. The attack was traced to a IP address registered with the Asia-Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT).

Malaysiakini

lodged a police report and a complaint with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), who confirmed the origin of the attack and is pursuing the matter.

Malaysiakini

is not the only website to come under attack. Harakahdaily.net , the website of opposition party PAS was defaced on March 18th.

Quick reaction

Malaysiakini

will be doing its best to block any infiltration of its systems.

"We are taking these rumours very seriously and will act quickly to stop any attack," said its chief executive officer Premesh Chandran.

"Its unfortunate that there are parties who cannot respect independent media and would go to all lengths to shut us down. Everybody should respect the democratic process, which includes a free press and access to information, in order to make an informed decision," he added.

If the servers are attacked and brought down, readers are advised to go to other websites such as Harakahdaily , or weblogs such as Jeff Ooi's Screenshots and Aliran's Election Media Watch , for instructions on accessing malaysiakini's alternative servers.