Mosima Hack Team, the group who claimed responsibility for the recent attack of the ANC\u2019s website, said that weak passwords and 8 security bugs made it easier to hack into the server.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe security of the website was tough,\u201d Mosima said, but added that the type of measures used by the ANC\u2019s website host only took them 2 hours to crack.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started cracking the security around 03:30, then we created back doors and left FTP open,\u201d Mosima said. \u201cWe came back at 17:00 to delete everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Mosima, passwords as weak as \u201cNelsonOliver94\u201d were used and the web software used \u2014\u00a0MySQL and PHP \u2014\u00a0were out of date and riddled with vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n
Asked why they didn\u2019t deface the website, as hackers have done before, Mosima said their plan was to see what was stored on the server and delete the site\u2019s contents.<\/p>\n
If the ANC doesn’t \u201cstop the circus\u201d it is running in Parliament, Mosima has promised to deface the website next.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven now the hosting company simply uploaded the site back, they didn\u2019t check for any unusual access. The bugs are still there to exploit again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ANC website is developed and hosted by Unwembi, and we asked the company about the security measures it has in place to protect the servers of high-profile sites such as the ANC’s.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnwembi deploys several security layers, comprising both software and hardware to protect such high-profile sites and constantly does testing to mitigate vulnerabilities,\u201d Unwembi\u2019s managing director Andrew Friedman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis allows us to detect many attacks, which take place constantly and are thwarted,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this is a cat-and-mouse game where the mouse sometimes gets the upper-hand, with hackers outpacing the numerous methods that are deployed to stop them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still investigating our records and have uncovered data that will be forwarded to the authorities for further investigation,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n
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