Kuala Lumpur (dpa) – Malaysian and Philippine hackers waged their own war in cyber space Tuesday as troops assaulted followers of a Philippine sultan claiming ancestral land rights in the eastern state of Sabah.

More than 200 websites from both countries were attacked during three days of clashes on the north-eastern tip of Borneo, the Star newspaper of Malaysia reported.

“Hackers claiming to be from the Malaysian and Filipino chapters of the hacktivist group Anonymous attacked websites of both countries,” it said.

Malaysian hackers were believed to have fired the first salvo by attacking Philippine websites when fighting first broke out Friday between Malaysian security forces and followers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III in Lahad Datu town, 1,600 kilometer east of Kuala Lumpur.

Philippine blog Pinoy Tech News also reported that some Philippine government websites were hit by denial-of-service attacks, bombardments of automated requests that cause websites to crash.

Other Philippine websites were defaced, with messages reading:

“Bring Your Ship and Take Back Your Dogs, Stop Killing Malaysian Army & Police. Otherwise, We Will Attack Philippine Government’s Website.”

Filipino hackers retaliated by hacking Malaysian government websites, providing lists of the sites hacked or defaced, according to Pinoy Tech News.

“Pinoy hackers of various crews responded to Malaysian aggression,” the blog said. “Malay hackers set off the fire, Pinoy hackers keep it hot even (after) Anonymous Malaysia’s apology. Pinoy versus Malay keyboard warriors.”

Sporadic cyber attacks continued Tuesday even though hackers from both countries agreed to a truce on Monday, a Philippine source said.