{"id":66474,"date":"2012-12-09T14:05:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-09T12:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=66474"},"modified":"2012-12-09T14:13:44","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T12:13:44","slug":"south-african-websites-hacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/66474-south-african-websites-hacked.html","title":{"rendered":"South African websites hacked"},"content":{"rendered":"

A hacker is claiming responsibility for disrupting three South African government websites.<\/p>\n

The social development department’s web address www.population.gov.za opened to a black page with a window containing the animated graphic “Website hacked by H4ksniper” and a graphic depicting a heart rate monitor on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Beneath it was the message: “Hello South Africa :D , Bad News For You IM BACK ! ..You Messed Wi[t]h Us & Now You Must Suffer..From Morocco with love.”<\/p>\n

“H4ksniper” provided a link to the facebook account Moroccan Haksnipx, where he was accepting messages of support.<\/p>\n

Asked the reasons for the attack, H4ksniper responded by e-mail: ” We all know that SA is the first supporter of the [Rep\u00fablica \u00c1rabe Saharaui Democr\u00e1tica] RASD and the ennemi of Morocco since a long time and we are hackers and our goal is defending our country…”<\/p>\n

The hacker also claimed to be working alone.<\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia, the RASD, which is also known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), is a partially recognised state which claims sovereignty over the Western Sahara, but controls only about a fifth of the territory, which it calls the Liberated Territories or the Free Zone.<\/p>\n

Morocco controls and administers the rest, which it calls its Southern Provinces.<\/p>\n

South Africa regards Western Sahara as a territory illegally occupied by Morocco and wants greater self-determination for its residents.<\/p>\n

In an e-mailed response, H4ksniper described himself as being “not black hat hackers”.<\/p>\n

“We don’t have evil plans on our minds. We are grey hackers and we’re defending our country and our religion!”<\/p>\n

\"Government<\/a>

Government population website hacked<\/p><\/div>\n

Grey hat hacking refers to the activities of skilled hackers who disrupt websites not for personal gain, but to expose technological vulnerabilities or create public awareness about a particular issue.<\/p>\n

Black hat hackers destroy data or spread viruses, often for no given reason.<\/p>\n

On the social development department website, “H4ksniper” provided a link to the facebook account of Moroccan Haksnipx where he was accepting messages of support.<\/p>\n

“H4ksniper” also left a message of greeting, apparently to other hackers.<\/p>\n

“Greets to Aresox, M.A.S, Moroccan Hunters, Ng3r Root, All Moroccan Hackers.”<\/p>\n

Social development spokeswoman Lumka Oliphant said the department was aware of the problem.<\/p>\n

She said the department was not concerned that the hacker could have accessed sensitive information. “No sensitive information is on the website,” she said.<\/p>\n

The site is hosted by the SA State Information Technology Agency (Sita).<\/p>\n

“… We have logged a call with them [Sita] and we await their response on the matter,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Presidential National Commission (PNC) and the National Population Unit’s websites were also hacked.<\/p>\n

The PNC and social development department websites had been restored by 2pm.<\/p>\n

\"PNC<\/a>

PNC contact page<\/p><\/div>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

Hacker convicted for iPad data breach<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unhackable telecom networks a step closer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Anonymous targets Israeli websites<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SA credit cards hacking party revealed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Anonymous targets Zynga<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hacker is claiming responsibility for disrupting three South African government websites<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":55639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5456,1565,35],"class_list":["post-66474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-government-1","tag-hacker","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66478,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66474\/revisions\/66478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}