ANC responds to website attack

The hacker activist, or “hacktivist”, who took responsibility for the downtime of the Independent Online (IOL) website, Anonymous Africa, has turned their sights to the ANC website, which was taken offline at 10:00 today (Friday, 14 June 2013) through a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack.

Attempts to access the ruling party’s website (www.anc.org.za) before noon on Friday resulted in the message: “Problem loading page… The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy”.

ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu said in a statement: “The African National Congress has noted that someone calling themselves Anonymous, and claiming to be the legitimate representative of the people of Zimbabwe, has flooded the website of our organisation.”

Mthembu said the attack on the website “was done through a deliberate assault on our system, called Distributed Denial of Service (DDS)”.

The ANC’s website management team was working on the problem, including assessing means to strengthen security so that such an attack did not happen again.

Mthembu said the ANC and the South African government would continue to work with the government and people of Zimbabwe to help them find a lasting solution to the problems facing that country.

“The ANC will not be deterred or derailed in the efforts to assist, where requested, in Zimbabwe, or elsewhere on the continent.

“Acts of deliberate sabotage, such as the one on our website, should serve only to strengthen the resolve of all stakeholders to constructively engage in a free and democratic manner,” he said.