Three government websites that were disrupted by a hacker over the weekend were defaced, not hacked, the State Information Technology Agency (Sita), which hosts the sites, said on Tuesday (11 December).<\/p>\n
“Sita is confident of its work and capacity to secure government information and this remains the bedrock of its operations”, acting CEO Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said in a statement.<\/p>\n
She said there was a distinction between hacking and defacing a website.\u00a0“… Only the front-face or cosmetic parts were altered, but no government information was under threat.”<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning, the website of the department of social development 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 \ud83d\ude00 , Bad News For You IM BACK ! ..You Messed Wi[t]h Us & Now You Must Suffer..From Morocco with love.”<\/p>\n
The Presidential National Commission (PNC) and the National Population Unit’s website’s were similarly defaced.<\/p>\n
By 2pm on Sunday the PNC and social development department websites had been restored.<\/p>\n
Ntshavheni said cyber-criminal activity would not be tolerated in South Africa. She said that no sensitive information was compromised by the breach.<\/p>\n
“This information is protected by an extremely comprehensive and detailed standards set of controls comprising of best practices in information security.”<\/p>\n
Asked the reasons for the attack, H4ksniper responded by e-mail on Sunday: ” 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
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.
\nSouth Africa regards Western Sahara as a territory illegally occupied by Morocco and wants greater self-determination for its residents.<\/p>\n
H4ksniper described himself as a “grey hat hacker”, which refers to the activities of those who disrupt websites not for personal gain, but to expose technological vulnerabilities or create public awareness about a particular issue.<\/p>\n
This is in contrast to black hat hackers, who destroy data or spread viruses, often for no given reason.<\/p>\n
South African websites hacked<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n